The Priority of Love

In a recent conversation on ConversantLife (http://www.conversantlife.com/life-with-god/5-questions-for-brian-mclaren), Brian McLaren was asked how he remains peaceful amid all the conflict among Christians. His answer is great. Here's a repost:

You get a lot of criticism from evangelicals, yet you seem to always maintain a very winsome and open spirit. What keeps you in such a positive and calm frame of mind when just about everybody else seems agitated for one reason or another?

I grew up in an extremely conservative and contentious fundamentalist movement or sect. It was filled with wonderful people who loved God, but the sociology of the group depended on exclusion and exclusiveness. When I "emerged" from that exclusive fundamentalism into a broader evangelicalism, I was hoping to find less contention. And I think I did. But in recent years, I think a contentious form of fundamentalism has been making a comeback and is in the process of a takeover attempt in evangelicalism. (I think similar movements are afoot in Catholicism and Mainline Protestantism too.) When I see this, I am not impressed by it, because I grew up with it and saw what it does to people.

I've learned in my own experience that it's way easier to think oneself right than to be loving. So Paul had it dead right when he said that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up, and that without love, no matter how right you are, you gain nothing but produce a lot of noise.

So really, I'm grateful for my religious heritage in fundamentalism. It taught me many things including that if you live by contention - theological swordplay, if you will - you will die by it. If you seek to argue and fight against an argumentative and combative spirit, you become what you are against. (Paul said that if you bite and devour each other, you'll consume each other, which describes our situation pretty well.) So my background forced me to seek a better way—what Paul calls the most excellent way, the way of love, the way of the Sermon on the Mount that transcends the way of the scribes and Pharisees.

Of course, I often trip up and slip back into things I am trying to grow beyond, but even that experience of failure humbles a person and makes it harder to try to put oneself in the position of an equal, much less a superior, in relation to one's fellow Christians. I guess so much comes back to Paul's words in Philippians 2, where he urges us to consider others as better than ourselves and to follow Jesus downward into servanthood. I suppose that to whatever degree I am, albeit imperfectly, able to maintain a winsome, calm, open, or positive spirit, it's because God has used the practices I explore in Naked Spirituality to form me. I still have a long, long way to go, so even though I wrote this book, I need its message as much as anyone else.

A New Church in Nashville?

By now, most of you have heard that Judy and I are planning to start a new church next year in Nashville's central city. (You can hear our announcement to our church and why we feel called to this ministry by clicking here and then on "Our Call to Plant a Church." I'm not going to repeat all of that message in this blog, so I hope you'll listen.) This past summer, Judy and I were presented with an opportunity to plant a missional church in Nashville. We've spent the past several months working through this decision. The most difficult part has been knowing the impact it will have on so many of our brothers and sisters at the Donelson Church of Christ who have been so supportive of our ministry here and to whom we have become so close. The fact that we will be in Nashville and that the Donelson Church will help support us, though, means that these relationships won't change in the way they would have if we were moving to another city.

This announcement naturally has raised lots of questions. I'll try and answer some of those here.

Does Nashville really need another church?

That's a great question. There are certainly a lot of churches in this city. Unfortunately, as in the rest of America, few churches are having much success at reaching people who don't believe in Jesus Christ. Most churches aren't growing. Of those that are growing, most are just moving members from other churches or reactivating people who used to go to church (an important ministry, but not quite the same as converting unbelievers into believers).

This summer Judy and I read a book on planting missional churches called The Tangible Kingdom: Creating Incarnational Community by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. It had a powerful impact on us as we were considering this work. They cited several studies that showed that the church is not only not growing in America, we are actually losing ground…fast. About 100 million Americans have not been to any kind of church service in the past 6 months. In the 1990s, the number of adults who do not attend church nearly doubled. And the problem is getting much worse with young adults (aged 18-30), who are over three times more likely to have no religious affiliation than those over 65.

What we are doing in our churches (and in our personal lives) is not reaching unbelievers. They cited another study from 2001 showing that "half of all churches in America did not add one new person through conversion growth last year." The study also reported that "it takes the combined effort of eighty-five Christians working over an entire year to produce one convert."

And Judy and I had to be honest and say that we're part of the problem. I have been doing ministry for almost 30 years, but nearly all of that has been among the saved. I often lament that "my job is the church, my church is the church, and my friends are the church." I have little or no meaningful contact with unbelievers. Rarely do I have the joy of sharing Jesus with someone unless a church member introduces me to a friend who has questions—and that doesn't happen very often. We know we have to learn to live and serve in a different way.

And so do most churches. As Halter and Smay observe:

"Without blaming church leaders, the church at large, or denominations, we can at least acknowledge that something must change to reverse these trends. We need to start by doing some things we haven't been doing, and we must stop doing some things we have been doing."

We know that planting new churches is the most successful means of reaching new people in our culture. Our hope is that our ministry in this new church will find ways to reach people we have not been reaching. And perhaps we will learn some things that we can share with Donelson to help us all do more to reach those who live in our community.

What do we mean by a "missional" church?

The term "missional" refers to a church that is focused on God's mission to reconcile people to himself and to help those who are poor and suffering. This is the mission that brought Jesus into the world and shaped his ministry. God has a mission and created the church to accomplish that mission. So it is often said that "the church doesn't have a mission, the mission has a church." The term "missionary" implies that we are sending others out on the mission. "Missional" suggests that we should all be on God's mission in this world.

Our hope is to plant a church made up of people from various socio-economic, racial, and ethnic groups. We want to reach people who are moving back into the city and draw them into a fellowship of believers who are serving the needs of the poor who live just blocks away. Our focus will be much less on a Sunday worship service. Rather than try to attract people to a church building, we hope to partner with ministries in the city to serve children, unwed mothers, the homeless, and more. “Membership” will have less to do with attending a service and more to do with joining followers of Jesus in serving those in need.

Who are the church planting ministries working with us?

We are working with two church planting ministries who will help train us, coach us, and support us as we get started. As part of trying to determine whether we were being called to this work, Judy and I went through two assessments this summer, one with each of these church planting ministries. Those assessments were designed to evaluate whether we were gifted and ready to plant a church. Both assessments recommended us as church planters.

One of these, Mission Alive, is a ministry from Churches of Christ that helps plant missional churches. (Randy Harris helps provide theological training for church planters working with this ministry. I just attended their Theology Lab in Dallas.) The other is Stadia, a ministry from the independent Christian Churches. Partnering with such ministries helps church planters be more effective and successful, and also provides some accountability to assure supporters that the work is being carried out responsibly and faithfully.

Although the details are still being worked out, here's how the general process will work. A management or partnership team will be formed to help oversee the first 2 or 3 years of the work. This team will be composed of representatives from Mission Alive and Stadia, as well as from the churches who become partners in a network to support the work, and of course the church planter (me). This team provides advice, accountability, and assistance in making important decisions until the new church has it's own leadership and is self-supporting. An experienced church planting coach will also be assigned to work closely with us. And financial accounting will be provided as well. We won't be on our own!

You can learn more about Mission Alive at missionalive.org and more about Stadia at stadia.cc. A helpful article about church planting is "Encouraging Trends in Church Planting" by Dr. Philip Claycomb, the director of another church planting ministry called Nexus.

What are the networks of churches involved?

We hope to be supported by two networks of churches. A network is a group of churches committed to church planting, who partner with a church planting ministry to start new churches. The network churches provide financial support and may also provide volunteers for certain projects, or even a few members to help form a core to start the new church. The new church plants become part of such networks and continue to support the planting of more new churches.

We are working to form a network of Churches of Christ to partner with Mission Alive in this church planting. The elders of the Donelson Church of Christ have said they want to be part of this effort. In the weeks ahead, we will be talking with a number of other churches in the area to ask them to help us form a network of congregations committed not only to plant this church, but to continue planting other churches, that will plant more churches, and so on.

The other network is made up of several independent Christian Churches in Middle Tennessee. They have already been partnering with Stadia to plant churches in Murfreesboro, Mt. Juliet, and other towns. They have hoped that some Churches of Christ might join them in planting a church in Nashville. Christian Churches come from the same heritage as Churches of Christ, the American Restoration Movement begun by Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell (in fact, they call themselves, "Christian Churches and Churches of Christ"). They are virtually identical to Churches of Christ in every respect, except that they use instrumental music in their worship assemblies. In recent decades they have been more evangelistic and more committed to planting new churches.

An important part of this new ministry is the way it will unite our churches in the common mission of reaching the lost and serving the poor.

Where will the new church be located?

We don't know that yet. That decision will be based on some demographic research that we are just beginning and some strategic planning. We want to find a place that is not already targeted by other new church plants. An area like Germantown, just north of downtown is one possibility. People are moving into that neighborhood and refurbishing old homes or building new ones, while just a few blocks away are much poorer neighborhoods.

Our plan is to begin by forming a house church, and then more house churches. Eventually, we'll begin some kind of regular meeting together, probably in a rented facility. We don't plan to purchase a building, at least not any time soon.

What is next?

We are currently working out the details of the partnership between Mission Alive and Stadia. We're also beginning to meet with other churches to ask them to be part of the network. The church planting ministries tell us we'll need to raise about $300,000 to fund the effort for the first three years, so we'll continue to work to raise support from churches and individuals. We also have to choose the neighborhood where we will begin the work, and find a home there. As we meet with churches, we will also be looking for individuals and couples who may want to join us in this new work. At some point next year, we'd like to find another couple to actually work with us as church planters. In January, we'll attend a week-long training session with Mission Alive and another week-long session with Stadia.

There is much to learn, and much more to do. We are excited by the possibilities and the dreams of how God may use this new church to reach more people for Jesus and to serve the least of these his brothers and sisters.

We hope that you will pray for us, that you will consider supporting us, and even more importantly, that you will consider how God might use you to accomplish his mission where you are.

More on Baptism Matters

I've been thinking a little more about how to explain what I mean by "baptism matters." Let me expand a little on the education analogy (acknowledging that no analogy is perfect).

To say that baptism doesn't matter unless it is a get-it-right-or-be-lost issue seems to me to say that the only things that matter are those that keep you out of heaven. To me that says that following Jesus is just a pass-fail class and nothing matters except what is required to pass the class. I'm reminded of those students in a college class (I've had some of these in my classes) who don't care about anything but the minimum required to pass. If you don't have to do it to pass, then it doesn't matter to them.

But better students want more than just to pass. They want to learn. They want to become competent in a field of study. They want to be good students. They want to be the best they can be. They want to grow. Other things matter to these students than just what it takes to pass. They want to know what it will take to make an A. They want to do more, read more, study more, discuss more, and attend class more than students who only care about passing.

Aren't there things in the Christian faith that matter even if failure to do them or understand them correctly doesn't keep you out of heaven? Do I really want to stand before God and say, "Nothing you said in the Bible mattered to me except what I thought was a requirement to get into heaven"?

Figuring out what is on the "heaven or hell" list is not always easy. But I think Jesus put his emphasis on something other than baptism.

Rob

Does Baptism Matter?

In the late 1970s, in a class on Restoration History at Abilene Christian University (a "Church of Christ" school), Dr. Bill Humble explained that the Churches of Christ had begun as a nondenominational movement. They saw themselves as "Christians only, not the only Christians." However, he further explained that we had been evolving into a denomination, and that the evolution was virtually complete. It was an eye-opening examination of our roots and of the current state of our fellowship.

In the early 1980s I had my first experience of true nondenominational Christianity when I attended graduate school at Wheaton College, a nondenominational evangelical school. Professors from a variety of Christian traditions deepened my understanding of the Scriptures, matured my faith in Christ, and challenged my walk with God. Students from a variety of denominations joined together in study, worship, and fellowship. Denominational identities were relatively unimportant and virtually ignored (at that time, every member of the Theology faculty was attending a different denomination than the one in which he had been raised). What mattered most was that we shared a common faith in Christ, a common trust in the inspiration and authority of the Scripture, and a common fellowship in the family of God. I had grown up in churches and schools that claimed to be nondenominational, but it wasn't until I reached Wheaton that I realized how misleading those claims had been.

In the years that followed I had more and more opportunities to enjoy fellowship across denominational lines. In Promise Keepers rallies, local ministerial associations, church leadership conferences, gatherings of Pro-Life clergy, a city-wide prayer movement in Houston, and more, I would find myself in worship and prayer and study side-by-side with Christians from across the entire spectrum of the Christian church. I sang with Pentecostals, planned city-wide prayer services with Baptists, prayed for the unborn with Catholics, and learned about church growth from Methodists.

And throughout that journey, one objection has continually been raised by sincerely troubled members of my own fellowship—good folk who, knowingly or not, have rejected the nondenominational roots of our churches. "If you accept all those other groups as Christians," some will say, "then you are saying that baptism doesn't matter." What they are saying is that one must be properly baptized, as we understand the New Testament to teach baptism, in order to be Christian and be saved. If you say that someone can be a Christian and be saved without being properly baptized, then you are saying that baptism doesn't matter.

But is that really true? Are the only options either to say that correct baptism is an absolute, essential, indispensable requirement for salvation and fellowship or to say that baptism doesn't matter? Is there nothing in between?

Can I say that Jesus and the apostles commanded baptism, and that they practiced it by immersion; that God intended for all believers to be baptized as part of becoming a Christian and receiving his forgiveness; and that I believe God intended baptism to be "believer's baptism" (i.e., baptism based on one's own faith and repentance) rather than infant baptism; but, also acknowledge that many believers in Jesus (most, in fact) have sincerely reached different conclusions? Can't I also say that God is judge, not me; and, it is not my place to decide which persons who claim to be Christians may, in fact, be weeds which God may someday separate from the wheat? Can't I also say that since salvation is by grace through faith, not by works, that someone who believes in Jesus and is mistaken about baptism will be saved by the same grace and mercy of Jesus that I trust will save me in my own errors of understanding? Can't I acknowledge that the New Testament never directly addresses the issue of when to baptize children raised in Christian homes, and therefore acknowledge that as convinced as I am of the correctness of believer's baptism, some will sincerely come to different conclusions?

Are the only things that "matter" the ones which will keep you out of heaven? Is the Christian life just a "pass-fail" class, and the only things that matter are the ones required for you to pass? Isn't it important to try and do more than the minimum? Doesn't obedience matter, even if perfect obedience isn't required for salvation? Doesn't it matter for us to continue to teach "New Testament baptism" (as we understand it) to those who would follow Jesus, even though we may acknowledge that many have come to follow Jesus without being taught about that baptism? Doesn't it matter to practice and teach what we understand the Scriptures to teach, even though we trust that God's mercy will save both us and others who do not perfectly understand what the Scriptures teach? Doesn't it matter for us to do what we sincerely believe God wants us to do, without condemning those who sincerely think differently?

Yes, baptism matters!

I just think Jesus matters more.

A Compliment I Don’t Like Hearing

"You're the coolest 'Church of Christ' preacher I've ever met."

When a lady said this to me, I had to remind myself that she was trying to express an enthusiastic compliment. But somehow it was hard to feel very grateful. I might have felt differently if she was impressed with my undeniably cool personality or my sharp fashion sense or my familiarity with the latest cultural trends. But that was not what she meant.

The comment was made at the end of a gathering of local church leaders and members to discuss how our churches could cooperate in meeting the needs of the poor in our community. Her point was that she had known other ministers from Churches of Christ who would not have participated in such gatherings and were not open to such fellowship with other Christians.

Several times recently I've received compliments like that. One kind person said, "Some of my relatives are 'Church of Christ'—but you're not anything like them!" Now mind you, I enjoy a compliment as much as anybody. And I certainly appreciate it when people like me. But that kind of compliment causes me as much pain as it does pleasure. Such statements are not merely affirmations of something about me, they are criticisms of my religious heritage. More than criticisms, they are in fact condemnations (though probably not intentionally so) of the sectarian arrogance that has too often characterized the interactions of Church of Christ ministers and members with other followers of Jesus.

The irony, of course, is that the sectarian reputation by which Churches of Christ are too often known is completely contrary to the original vision and attitude of our movement. We began with the call to be "Christians only, but not the only Christians." Somewhere along the way, many of our churches replaced that identity with "Christians only and the only Christians" (though few if any would have openly proclaimed those words). Sadly, a nondenominational movement zealously committed to Christian unity has become widely known as a narrowly sectarian denomination.

A few days ago I sat at a luncheon for our local ministerial association. At one point in the meal, a minister attending the association for the first time looked at me with a puzzled expression and said, "Now…I have to ask something…" (I looked over at a colleague from my church and said, "Here it comes." This has happened so many times over the years that I can almost see it coming before any words come out.) Searching for the right words, he continued, "You…uh…you are from the Church of Christ, right?" ("I told you.")

"Not that kind of 'Church of Christ,'" I replied.

Everyone at the table was laughing.

I wanted to cry.

Who’s Next?

I have just learned that the standard directory of the Churches of Christ (meaning the a cappella branch of the Restoration Movement founded 200 years ago by Barton Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell; not the "Christian Churches/Churches of Christ," another branch of the same movement which uses instrumental music in worship; nor the International Churches of Christ, formerly known as the Crossroads/Boston/Discipling Movement, a splinter group that broke off the from Churches of Christ; nor the United Church of Christ, an entirely separate denomination with ties only in the distant past) has removed 21 churches from the 2009 edition of the directory.

Note I said "removed," not "labeled." The directory has long included a wide variety of Churches of Christ in its listings. Past editors have indicated the diversity with labels designating congregations that are one-cup, or non-class, or non-institutional, or predominately African-American, and so on. At one time they had an "ecumenical" label for those congregations that were less sectarian and less traditional than other Churches of Christ (I don't know if that designation is still used). But in this case they chose not to label these congregations. They completely removed them.

Some of those 21 churches have reportedly broken ties with the rest of the a cappella fellowship. In that case, their removal seems justified for a directory that intends to serve that fellowship. But for others, the decision is very disturbing, including the Richland Hills Church of Christ in Fort Worth (the largest Church of Christ in America) and the Farmers Branch Church of Christ in Dallas (where my son has been attending) and the Redwood Church in Redwood City, CA (where a good friend of mine now preaches, who used to serve with me as our youth minister in Houston).

And why have they been removed? Because of their use of instrumental music in one of their worship services on Sunday morning. Those three churches each have an a cappella worship service on Sunday morning, but they have also added an instrumental service (that's right—the largest a cappella Church of Christ in America also has an instrumental service on Sunday morning). And for that they are no longer listed in our directory.

These churches have not broken ties with our fellowship. Their ministers and their members still attend events and go to schools sponsored by Churches of Christ. They still baptize by immersion; keep weekly communion; believe in the authority of Scripture; and proclaim Jesus as Lord (of course, not in that order of importance). And they still value our a cappella heritage and continue to have a cappella services.

But they have decided to be both/and churches rather than either/or churches. They have decided they don't have to choose to be either exclusively a cappella or exclusively instrumental. They can offer both a cappella and instrumental services and give their members and visitors the freedom to choose. For this the editors of the directory, published by 21st Century Christian here in Nashville, have decided they are no longer one of us. (Click here for the story in The
Christian Chronicle.).

So what does this mean? Am I supposed to withdraw fellowship from the preachers at these churches, all of whom are friends of mine? Are the other Churches of Christ in their area supposed to stop inviting them to 5th Sunday Singings and area-wide Bible Bowls? (Do we still do those things?) Do we not tell members moving to those cities that these churches exist?

And who's next? If these churches are out because of Sunday morning services, what about the many Churches of Christ all over the country that have instrumental music in events at other times? That probably includes most of the largest Churches of Christ in the Nashville area. Hey, that includes my church! Are we going to be cut out of the next edition?

And what will get you cut out? Does it have to be a live instrument? What if you show a music video in the worship service? Will that get you kicked out? Or what if you show a clip from a movie during the sermon, and the movie has a sound track that includes a musical instrument? What if your Sunday School uses a CD of songs for children? What if your teens are listening to their ipods during church? (Ok, ok. Now I'm being sarcastic. But I just want to know what the rules are.)

And who gets to decide? Do the editors of this directory (apparently they think they do). Maybe we need to appoint a denominational board to rule on who is in and who is out. But wait, that won't work—we aren't a denomination . . . Right?