The Story of the Church

I’d like to present the story of what God is doing in history with a slightly different angle than you may have heard before.

Phase 1 – The Return.
Jesus did not simply go to heaven when he died.   He could have just been up there just sitting with God the Father  but he did more  — He returned to earth in a resurrected body.   It was in this resurrected body that he gave the disciples the great commission, saying that “all authority” had been given to him and they were “disciple all the nations.”   Jesus had been crucified for being the “King of the Jews,” but now he has returned.

Put this in another context:  as analogy, think about Napoloen.  He was exiled for claiming to be ruler of the Franks.  Then he returned in bodily form.   His simple return from exile was an act of defiance and war.   He immediately began his conquest again.

This is exactly what Jesus did.  After being crucified, he only came back with greater strength.   He returned a conqueror.  He had not been defeated but had come back stronger.   Except, he had defeated something far greater than his natural enemies.  He had defeated death itself.  Therefore, Jesus re-emergence on the earth was literally the presence of a new world order.    He set foot on the planet and commissioned his disciples to extend this order to all the ends of the earth.  The conquest of life over death, freedom over bondage, health over sickness, holiness over sin, had begun.

Phase 2 – Establishing a Beachhead
His disciples faithfully took this message aggressively to the far corners of the world.   East into Persia, and as far as India and eventually China.   South to Ethiopia, the doorway to Africa.   North to the Caucuses and West to Rome.  The conquest of life over death had begun.   The explosive power of the church made major inroads everywhere it went.   This was the Holy Spirit, but it was more — it was the risen Christ resident in his people.   It was the spirit of the conqueror manifesting through the love and power of his followers.  They were bringing onto the earth a completely new Kingdom, not to take over the old, but to replace it.   This is an important distinction.  If Jesus had wanted to take over, he could have taken Satan’s offer to rule all of the Kingdoms of this world, or at least the Jews offer to make him King.  Instead, he inaugurated a new Kingdom of a new type with his return to earth.

The war was brought against them by the powers and princes of this world.   Just as they attacked Christ, so they attacked the messengers of his Kingdom.   Just as they could not stop Him, they could not stop the messengers either.   Just as he gained life through death, so through their deaths, even more were brought to life. The first phase of this conquest ended with Armenia, Ethiopia and Rome all becoming officially Christian.

Phase 3 - Defending the Beachhead
Rome then split into two parts.    Of these four, three of them all ended in the same way — with the church no longer persecuted, but enmeshed in the state.   There would be one official state doctrine and state church.   All others would be persecuted.   This meant that instead of pagans killing Christians, Christians would persecute other Christians.   Every point of theology must be agreed or you would not be welcomed in the empire.   The state was tamed, made more merciful — such as the outlaw of gladitorial games, and the practice of exile instead of execution — but persecution could still arise again at any time against true Christians by those holding power who claimed also to be Christian.   Powerful heresies like Arianism competed for control of the state against orthodox doctrine.  Eventually this allegiance of political power and the state led to a dead version of Christianity, looking almost nothing like the New Testament stories.

Phase 4 – Transformation 
In the West, there was too much chaos to enforce a single state church.   Although the pope enforced a single doctrine, for more than a thousand years, wars would be fought over who was really in control — the church or the state.   This battle left space for regular people to make a mark.   First they joined monasteries.  Then these monasteries began to produce great leaders, and eventually these great leaders gained control of the church.  These leaders purified the church and sent preachers back again to the regular people.   This led to the start of many mass movements.  Each took a different version of Christian truth, but each represented regular people taking real heart belief in the words of the New Testament.   Many reformers emerged, but all failed to bring lasting and permanent reform to the church.

Phase 5 - Freedom
Then a man named Martin Luther emerged, under protection of the state, and spoke the truth to Rome.  They could not stop him and people everywhere took a hold of their religion.  The began to believe in a religion where a direct personal relationship with God was possible instead of one with priest and popes in the way.   Half of Europe fell to this vision.   Luther’s and Calvin’s churches were still enmeshed with the state, but they had redefined Christianity as a religion of internal piety instead of one of formal externals.  This version of Christianity took hold in Northern Europe, but especially in the England and Scotland, and eventually in the English colony of America.   Protestants of every stripe came to America and established a new kind of government, one that would be based on individual freedom, limited government, and Chrisitan morality, but which would not directly enmesh the church with the state.  This meant that the state could and would no longer persecute the true church because it disagreed with the political church.  Although there were always believers in the political church, the political  had persecuted the believing church in spells ever since the conquest of Rome.

Phase 6 - Globalization
Even before freedom was achieved, the rise of Western power created a situation where the a form of the Gospel could go around the world.   The Americas were discovered and colonized not by Muslims or Asians, but by Christians, and so an entire half of the world fell under the sway of a form of Christianity.   As the purified form of Christianity arose in Britain and then America, they began to gain increasing power.   Freedom, which based on Christianity, began to be projected around the world.    State power, the instrument of Satan’s persecution was being rolled back now on a global scale.  This led to a massive expansion of the Gospel worldwide.   Having a friendly but non-controlling state behind it, the church was able to make massive advances in places where it had never succeeded before.   Christianity became a global religion.

Phase 7 – Conflict and ?
All of this has led up to now. The global church in new places and cultures that we could have never imagined, but the historical church is in decline. The United States holds the current world order in place, but is in threat of being taken over by the enemy or replaced by another hostile power. If this happened today, it would lead to a significant roll back of gains. A radical re-engagement is necessary.

Conclusions
The master theme of church history is purification and expansion against hostile powers. Satan is always raising up non-Christian powers, even a non-Christian “church” to persecute the true church, but over the centuries the church is always advancing, becoming more pure, gaining influence over a greater and greater part of the world, neutralizing the powers of this world to stop it. All the meantime the church which is appearing looks more like Him, worshiping him more in the way he has longed for since the dawn of creation.

What does this mean for you? You cannot win a battle if you do not understand and engage the enemy. We are locked in a multi-generational struggle for history. We must purify the church, and fight back the powers of this world so that we can expand the church worldwide. We must pass a powerful form of Christianity down to our children that will gain even more ground for God, manifesting his presence in even greater dimensions.

Most influential Pentecostal/Charismatic churches in America

As far as I can tell from a brief search online there is no list of the most important Charismatic churches in America.  Therefore, I’m going to give it a shot.  There is a whole lot that I don’t know about, so I look forward to input from people out there.  Also, size and influence are different. Think about things like:

• How much they are a leader in defining a certain aspect or vision of Christianity.
•  How many many followers or copycats you have.
• Is the pastor on the circuit of conference speakers?
•  On TV?  Writing articles or influential books?
• Who looks to you as what they want to be?
• Do you have worship CDs that everyone listens to?
• Is the impact felt in the region?  Only a few churches have national attention, but many are very significant in their region.

These are not in a particular order but I’ve divided them into tiers.   First Tier:

1. Phoenix First.  Founded by Tommy Barnett, an evangelist famous from the revivals of the 50s, Phoenix Assembly of God, now known as Phoenix First, is currently the Gold Standard of Assembly of God churches, the most important Pentecostal denomination in America.    They dramatically increased their influence with the founding of the LA Dream center by scion Matthew Barnett
2. IHOP, Kansas City.   Founded by Mike Bickle of the Kansas City prophetic movement.  OK it’s not a church, but it really is.   They have a leader, a school, a full time congregation, a staff, branches throughout the country and massive influence around the world.   This is one of America’s most important movements.
3. Bethel, Redding.  If pushed,  I would argue this is the most influential and important church in America right now.  These guys are really pushing the boundaries of traditional Charismatic/Pentecostal Christianity, and they are gaining a lot of worldwide attention doing it.   Some consider them to be a kind of heir to the Vineyard movement.
4. World Harvest Church, Columbus.   Rod Parsley.   Rod is a very unique brand.   He is a Pentecostal/Word of Faith preacher who is more about faith than money.   He has trained many and is known for his strong spirit.
5. Gateway Church, Dallas.   This is the first Charismatic “seeker-friendly” megachurch I know of.  Founded by Robert Morris, a man sent out of a the very Charismatic Trinity Amarillo.   Includes other prophetic style charismatics on staff like Reed Grafke, Paul Cain’s former assistant.
6. MorningStar, Charlotte.   Rick Joyner was practically the definition of the prophetic movement for almost 20 years.   Specializes in pioneering a prophetic vision of Christianity.   Some great worship has come out of here.  The church overall seems past it’s prime of influence, but is still a bellwether in what it means to be Charismatic.

Second Tier

1. Rhema Bible Church.  The Word of Faith movement, birthed out of Rhema is one of the most influential movements in worldwide Christianity.   The influence of the “headquarters” in Tulsa is not nearly as great as it once was but this is still the HQ.
2. Redemption World Outreach Center.   The most influential church in the smaller Pentecostal Holiness church movement.  Led by Ron Carpenter.   A lightning rod within the denomination about whether they should become “charismatic”
3. Church of His Presence, Alabama.   A new church, but led by a very influential leader: John Kilpatrick of the Brownsville revival.    Like only a few church leaders have done, he has doubled his success by being part of a second (although smaller) revival in Daphne, Alabama.   These events are sending more shockwaves through America.
4. Bethany World Prayer Center, Louisiana.   The church where Ted Haggard got his start.  The church that launched the G12 movement in America.  A very important church in that part of the country
5. City Bible Church, Portland.  Frank Damazio.   An anchor Church in the Northwest region, and also for the MFI movement, publishing house, and music.
6. Brooklyn Tabernacle, New York.  Jim Cymbala and the Brooklyn Tabernacle have redefined what is possible with churches in the big city.  Their music style sort of dates them, but Jim and the Choir have been an important voice in the church.
7. Heartland Church, Dallas.  Another product of the Brownsville revival.  Led by Steve Hill, the evangelist of the Brownsville revival.   Influential in the region and connected to the larger Charismatic movement.
8. Free Chapel Worship Center, Atlanta.  Jentzen Franklin.   Actually now leads one church on each coast.  Has a TV ministry and has sent out others to plant churches.

Black Churches.  Black  and white churches are in very different spheres of influence in America, thus I’ve given them their own list.   Here are the most important black churches in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement in America today.

1. Covenant Church of Pittsburgh.  Joseph Garlington may be one of the most important people you’ve never heard of.   He is the mentor/pastor of many of the leading black charismatic pastors in America.   He is aging now, but has been a very influential figure.
2. The Potter’s House, Dallas.  Undoubtedly the most important black church in America.   Jakes is twice as big as the next biggest black pastor, and that’s saying a lot.
3. City of Refuge, Los Angeles.  Noel Jones, is an absolute preaching phenomenon, all over the TV, runs a 20000 member church and hangs around with T.D Jakes.  Need I say more?
4. Greater St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church.  Paul Morton.    Morton spearheaded the movement to bring the Charismatic/Pentecostal experience to black Baptists.   As founder and presiding Bishop of the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship, and having cut several impressive gospel albums, he is a very influential leader.

People I left off

• Churches which were very influential until they lost their leader.  like Times Square Church, which is an incredibly important church, but without it’s former leader David Wilkerson, it’s place as an influential church for the whole nation has subsided.     Also in this category: Church on the Way.  This church piratically redefined the foursquare denomination, and spun off important things like the King’s Seminary, but with all it’s recent turmoil and the departure of Jack Hayford, is no longer one of the most important churches in America.  Also Ted Haggard’s old church New Life.   A large and important church, but not influential without Haggard.
• Lakewood Church.  Joel Osteen leads an incredibly large church, but his influence is really not inside the church world (never heard of anyone wanting to copy them).  It’s with average people who like his watered down version of the Gospel.
• I have omitted many other big ministries from this list, and ones you might see on TV.  Many of these are actually just spins of these more truly influential churches.

Love to improve this list by feedback.  Help me out!

 

Seven Idols of the Church

One of the things that has become increasingly clear to me is that idolatry is the basic condition of mankind.  We love darkness.  (John 3:19).    I was discussing this recently with my ministry partner because we’ve both had the experience repeatedly where you give someone a good book, that might  have something that’s just a little bit off in it.  Instead of getting the really good meat out of it, they latch on to the one thing that is really off in the book.   I was telling my wife about this and I felt like God said “Don’t feel bad, they do that to my book and it has no errors!”   In other words, the idols of our hearts latch onto and create false doctrine even when it is not there!

False doctrine is not so much about a particular bullet on a statement of faith, though.   It’s more about the spirit which animates that doctrine or movement.   You could reduce key pieces of that spirit into words, but what we’re really describing is how people worship idols inside the church.    I’m going to address several of the most common here:

Money
This is the most obvious one.  Churches worship money.   Some talk about it more than they talk about salvation.  That’s a pretty good sign that you have swapped gods.   Money is a tool for the Gospel.  That’s it.    If you are trying to get blessed, you are serving mammon, not God.   If you think God is you driving a fancy car, you are in idolatry.  Real Christians try to bless, not be blessed.    Check out this video.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIdTFSIj8AI

The Pastor
This one is common across all denominations.   Men love to worship men, and the church is no different than the football field in this way.   Some churches will treat pastors as if they are part of some god-like class of people that stands apart from all others.  They, like the pope, speak ex cathedra, and everything they say is gospel.  Their every wish is met at the snap of a finger by an “armor-bearer.”  They are considered super-spiritual and super holy.

Success
Success is the idol of many pastors and whole church movements.  Being a “made man” a pastor of a big church is the sign that you have arrived, that God has blessed you and that you are the real deal.   It can be a sign of that, or it can be the sign that you worshipped success and did whatever it took to get it.   If you gather a big crowd, in the church world that is seen as success, but it may be nothing than you are teaching a pet doctrine that everyone loves to hear.  Or that people love to be around the appearance of success, which you give off because you worship it.   Every work will be weighed by God.  Some that look great, will be simply wood, hay and stubble.

Authenticity
The opposite of worshipping success is worshipping authenticity.  The notion here is that because you are chill, you don’t wear suits, you just “come as you are”  Your pastor wears jeans and a t-shirt, you sip coffee in your service that you are real.  Sorry.    Instead of being changed into God’s image, you want God to be in your image.  Somehow the white, young, American, middle class, liberal look is authentic—because you happen to be that.  And your parents generation who you don’t respect, is not those things, all the better.  Repent .

The Bible
This is becoming less popular, but still a big deal among some circles.  Do you feel guilty if you didn’t read your Bible today? Nevermind that for the first three centuries of the church there was no Bible.   Nevermind that for the next 11 only a few monks had them.  Are you afraid of saying anything without a Bible citation?    Is God only able to speak to you through the Bible?   If so, then your God is not God, your God is the Bible.  Since that the only thing that can speak to you, it must be God.

Your Doctrine
Your denomination, church fellowship, church network, movement or you yourself have great doctrine?  If you praise your doctrine, your doctrine is your God, since only God deserves praise.  The Pharisees loved their doctrine.  They loved their movement.  They were after all much better than the Sadducees.  They did after all understand the Bible quite well and all it’s predictions of Jesus.  But when He came in the flesh, they killed him, because he broke their sabbath doctrine.   What if a prophet of God came and cursed your doctrine and your church movement?

The Holy Spirit
What??? How can God Himself be an idol?  Well for over a thousand years the Catholic and Eastern church managed to reduce Jesus to icons and idols.   Should it be a surprise that now that we have learned more about the Holy Spirit that we have made Him into an idol as well?   We worship the “fun” instead of “man.”   You can see this on full display when you go into a Charismatic church (and I’m Charismatic) .    The laughter tunnel.   The “manifestations”    We love people with a big amazing “God story”  Not because it brings us closer to God but because it’s exciting and impressive.   So it’s not really God in the person of the Holy Spirit we worship.   It’s the life he brings that we turn into a dead work.

The Incarnation of the Kingdom

In the book of Daniel, Nebuchadnezzar is given a dream of a giant statue.  It has a head of gold, a chest of silver, a core of bronze, and feet of iron mixed with clay.  Daniel interprets this dream as four great empires which were coming to rule over the earth.

• Gold — The Babylonians
• Silver — The Persians
• Bronze — Alexander and the Greeks
• Iron and Clay — The Romans

All of this happened exactly as Daniel prophesied.   The last event, however is the most interesting.  (2:34;44)

“While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands. It struck the statue on its feet of iron and clay and smashed them. Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver and the gold were all broken to pieces and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer. The wind swept them away without leaving a trace. But the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth….In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. “

The Great Empires are destroyed by the Kingdom of God.  Now this is very interesting for several reasons.  First, Jesus was born during the reign of the first great emperor of Rome — Augustus.  This was a fact that was not lost on the ancient interpreters such Eusebius.   Eusebius, however, thought that this mean the Roman Empire and the Kingdom of God were divinely established together.   The prophecy, suggests otherwise.   The Kingdom came to destroy the Empire.  (Does this sound like Star Wars?)   Let’s look at what we learn about this destruction

• The other four are ALL broken into pieces.  The Kingdom will crush all of the empires and and bring them to an end.
• There is no trace left of the other empires.  The wind sweeps them away.
• The Kingdom of God becomes a huge mountain and fills the whole earth.
• The Kingdom will never be destroyed or replaced.   It will endure forever.

This is what the Kingdom is and has been doing throughout it’s history.    If you stand here at this end of history and look backwards you can only say that the Kingdom of God has been a success.   Look at the numerical estimates of the Kingdom’s advance in history.  It started with only 120 people in the upper room.   It expanded rapidly in the book of acts into the tens of thousands of people  (Acts 4:4).  It has continued to expand so that now the ratio of Christians to unbelievers is 6 to 1.  Only 40 years ago it was 20 to 1.   Christianity is an explosive religion, it continues to explode in our time.

The character of church is advancing.   Think of Church 100 years ago.   You would be in a very formal setting listening to a preacher with robes, singing a formal sounding hymn, etc.   Now these things are not bad, but fast forward to what the contemporary church looks like.   It is much more alive and real.   We as a people are drawing closer to God.  The rule of God is advancing among within the church.

But that’s not the whole story, the presence of Christianity in history has changed the world in very significant ways.   The actual way of life has changed.  For example the end of slavery.  This is a Christian idea and Christians made it happen.  The list and ways is much too long for this post.    The point though is that are larger and larger part of the planet is acknowledging God, and that this has brought God’s ways into human life in some measure.   Is this how you think of the Kingdom of God?

The church began with an incarnation – the incarnation of God in the person of Christ.  He died, ascended into heaven.  He is governs the church from above, and is called the “head.”   We are the “body.”  Now what is a body except an incarnation of a person.  The physical presence of a spirit.  That is what the church is.  We are the incarnation.  Jesus’ incarnation brought the Kingdom of God to earth through his incarnation.  Our incarnation extends this to everyone who believes and acts on His Word.

The Kingdom of God is not a passive entity.  It does not sit somewhere on a map.  It is an active entity.  It is always pushing forward, just like the prophecy of Daniel declared.  As it does so, it robs the Kingdom of this world of its citizens.  According to Zephaniah 2:11 we are literally “starving” the gods of the Earth.  Robbing the devil of his worshippers.

Jesus said it was like leaven in dough.  When the yeast, which is a fungus, gets into a piece of dough, it grows very rapidly and changes the dough.  The presence or incarnation of yeast in the dough is an aggressive and transformational element.  That’s exactly what the Kingdom of God is.  When God’s Kingdom is truly incarnating through you and the church around you it is aggressive and transformational.  Think about Jesus.  His mere presence on the earth was such a severe threat to the Kingdoms of this world so they had to kill him.  And from a purely worldly perspective they were right.  Jesus’ followers took over the Roman Empire less than 300 years after he died.  Pilate may have killed Jesus, but Jesus took him off his throne.

In other words, the incarnation is a confrontation.  When you are like Christ, you are an offense to the world, you are going head to head with it.  You are a threat to its systems, it’s power, it’s method of operation.  Look at Jesus life and ministry from that lens.   The turning of the tables, and shouting at the pharisees, were not some out of character tangent. They were the mission.   He came to obselete their system — and he succeeded.

Wherever the power of Satan is in operation, you are there to despoil it.  Jesus said “my kingdom is not of this world”  We take that to mean “I am not setting up any Kingdom on this world.”  But that is incorrect.  Jesus Kingdom is alien to this world, just like Jesus was.  The presence of one true  believer is in itself the establishment of another Kingdom here on earth.  The The world cannot tolerate you because you are not of the world.  What is literally happening is described in Rev 21:2 “And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.”  The City of God is coming down from above through the growth and presence of God’s people here on the earth.

We’re not taking over Kingdoms any more than Jesus accepted rule of the world from Satan, or set himself up as caesar.  We have not come to rule the Kingdom that is here.  We’ve come to replace it with the rule of another King.  That is a confrontational statement.  We don’t blissfully ignore the systems or governments of this world, and if we’re doing our job right, they won’t ignore us either.  Every place where Satan has a toe hold, we’re going to blow it up.  You want slaves?  Sorry, you can’t have them.  We’re making that illegal.  You cannot operate your demonic Kingdom here.  You want colored water fountains?  You can’t have that either.  Killing unborn babies?  Nope.

The dominance of Christian principles in society and law should not be confused with coercive Christianity.  Jesus did not coerce or encourage his disciples to do so.   The incarnation of the Kingdom of the God should also not be confused with the takeover of the Kingdom of this world.  As long as there are unbelievers on this earth — there always will be — the government of this world will remain in place.  No amount of Christian influence can change that and it was not Jesus goal.  His goal was the bringing in of his own Kingdom to eventually obselete the one where you now live.

 

Infant or Believers Baptism and High or Low Church

It has become more clear to me recently how tightly the the mode of baptism ties to your view of Christian cultural engagement, and how both of these are correlated to where you live on the high or low church spectrum.   Here is the simplified version.

For most of Christian history baptism was practiced on infants.   Now, from a Reformed viewpoint, this is a debate about covenant theology — are the children members of the covenant or not.   From a Catholic viewpoint, its about something similar, but not looked at in exactly the same way.    Baptism is about being a member of the church, the one saving community.  Therefore, everyone must be baptized.

Now, what became obvious to the later reformers is that a baptized baby does not a Christian make.  Whole societies full of baptized people could live just like the devil with no problem.   Furthermore, they found no examples of infant baptism in the Scripture, so they moved to believer’s baptism.   In doing so, however, something much bigger was happening.    And what exactly this is can be seen in the life of Roger Williams and the later founding of America.

Roger Williams was basically a Puritan oriented type who started to believe in liberty of conscience rather than the more authority oriented view of the Puritans.   The puritan society was a covenant community — where everyone had to be a believer and submitted to the authority of the General Court in matters both spiritual and temporal.   For them, it was absolutely logical that you would baptize infants.  They are part of the community by birth.     Williams thought that each person must have the right to their own beliefs, not submitted to the state. After he was banished from the colony, this eventually led him to the believer’s baptism viewpoint.    Only those who truly believe should be baptized.

The outworking of these two views is significant, and reads backwards into the great commission discussion in the prior post.   The Baptistic view is by its nature more individualistic.  It allows space in the society for anyone to think anything and does not expect that the church will be discipling the society.   Some are in and some are out, and that should be fine with everyone.   This Baptistic view was the one to get enshrined in the American civil tradition through Jefferson, the first amendment, and the subsequent outworking of those ideas.   It was in fact Roger Williams who first talked about a “wall of separation”  between the Church and the civil sphere.

The innate problem with this view has taken two centuries to manifest — it leads to a form of church “self marginalization”  where we literally abandon the culture and it’s government to the world — that is those who are not baptized.  Spiritually speaking — believers have the Kingdom of God and unbelievers the Kingdom of this world.  Where this has eventually led is that the unbelievers disciple our youth through their control of all of societies institutions, and we try to resist their power through our every shrinking “home” sphere.   By contrast, baptizing infants, by its very nature implies authority beyond the believer, but over the entire society.  This is what was both believed and practiced by all groups who held to it.

Furthermore, look back at the Great Commission text.   If “discipling all nations” means cultures then the later verbs would logically seem to apply to all as well “baptizing, teaching, etc.”   But if it means disciple some out of those nations, then the baptism would logically apply to some individuals.

Now it gets more interesting when you add the dimension of “high church” versus “low church.”   What do these terms mean?   Well think of high church as the most formal, and low church as the least formal.   What is fascinating, however is that the place believers of these systems naturally occupy in society moves directly from the top down.  Here is how I would rank major groups from “high to low” church.  Those above the stars are infant baptism, and below are believer’s baptism

Catholic
Anglican
Lutheran
Presbyterian
Methodist
**************
Baptist
Pentecostal

For a simple example, who is on our supreme court?  Catholics.   What were the founding fathers primarily?  Anglicans.  And how many Pentecostals and Baptist are big time government figures?  In all of American history?  A scant few.

Now there are reasons beyond believer’s baptism for this as well.  I would posit partly that formalism is the natural religion of those with power, and emotionalism is the natural religion of those who lack power.    In American society, which is perhaps history’s only truly free market of religion, what you see is a fairly tight correlation between how “high church” someone is and how high they are in the social ladder as well (counting only those Catholics that actively believe and practice, that is)    CEOs and judges do not usually attend wild Pentecostal churches.   And poor people rarely attend Anglican churches.

Now, where does all of this lead us?   Is it time for us all to don our vestments and baptize our infants?  Or perhaps to simply abandon society for the future Kingdom?   Neither of these is workable.  After all, abandoning society to the unbelievers has utterly failed.   They have been and continue to teach each successive generation to be more heathen than the last.    This literally robs heaven of souls.

And I think that is the key we are searching for here — the understanding that discipleship of culture is an ultimately evangelistic project.    It is something that we do for the souls of future generations.   Not because of covenant or catholic communities or dominion theology.   Furthermore, even if the Great Commission is implying that we do cultural work and therefore “baptize all nations” this does not mean by extension that baptism can be valid or happen for someone apart from faith, or their own will.   We go teaching, with the intent to baptize, but only baptizing on consent.    Thus our evangelistic project is universal and involves cultural discipleship and redemption, but does not co-opt the entire society into the church community.

And about formalism we see in the life of Jesus neither formalism or emotionalism at work.   He was a controlled and mature adult.  He was canned heat, power in a person.   And he intentionally recruited from the “Middle” or “working” class which would tend to also be in the middle of this formal/emotional scale.   The lesson here for those of us who are Spirit filled, is that power and flash are not the same thing.   A circus like service robs us of part of what it takes to disciple the culture.  Paul saw and corrected this in 1 Corinthians, and I believe Jesus practiced it as a lifestyle.

Discipling the Nations

I was part of a church once that had a post-millennial flavor to their teaching.   In a nutshell, the people who say Jesus is not returning until we take over everything.  And that there really won’t be any tribulation, basically in the long view, things will get better and better and better until we win.   I couldn’t swallow this down because it seemed to need to dispatch with too much of the Bible.   For example that Revelation was written before 70AD and was mostly all about that.  In other words, the bad stuff in in the past.  Only good to come!

Now right along with this triumphalist perspective, was the interpretation of  Matthew 28:18-20 especially “go and make disciples of all nations”   This was interpreted to essentially mean “take over the world”   This is sometimes called dominion theology.    I rejected all of this.   After a lot of research, I took the “amillennial” position, following Augustine.   And I generally intepreted “go and make disciples of all nations” to mean  ”out of the nations make some disciples”   I even read it in the Greek.

Now I’m taking a closer look.   The greek behind this phrase is literally  ”disciple all the nations”   That’s it.  That’s what it says.  I asked a New Testament scholar about this and he confirmed it saying that the only reason it is translated “make disciples of” is because “disciple” is not a verb in standard English.    Now it gets interesting when you start to look at what a nation is.   A nation is not in the Bible a geopolitical entity.  That would have been a “kingdom.” or the “empire.”   A “nation” or “ethne” is a people group — humans with a shared language, culture, ancestry, history that make them unique.

An “ethne” is also a “people other than the Jews”  and is translated by translators choice in many other places as “Gentiles”  which is misleading in many cases.    So you could also read this passage as “disciple all the Gentiles”     Read that way (remember Matthew is the more “Jewish” Gospel),  Jesus is saying “do to the Gentiles what was done with the Jews.  Bring them under my authority.”

We have read this passage as meaning to go and gather up a few disciples, but it doesn’t say that or imply that at all does it?  It actually teaches that we should disciple nations. That is, whole people groups.   Now this is really difficult for the protestant mind.   We really don’t see things that way.    We see Christians as a small part of a large and hopeless pagan society.   This is because we are looking specifically at how many individuals will be born again.   It’s obvious that even at high points of history relatively small numbers of people were heaven bound.    So we assume that we’re just supposed to be this minority that floats through history evangelizing other individuals.

The postmillennialists have seized on this and talked about take over, but they’ve missed it.   In reality, this scripture is a piece of strategic genius.  Jesus is saying “Gain influence over the corporate entity”  because that corporate entity — the “nation” is what disciples everything else.    In a tribe, that’s a chief.   You gain influence over him, and all of his people will be baptized, regardless of whether they are really “born again”  and that society will begin to implement Christian rather than pagan values.   In a modern state, that means things like media, arts, government.. These centers of culture actually disciple and train our youth what to think and therefore shape our future, and ultimately lay the foundation for who will or will not be saved. Discipling nations is not about “take over”  in the long term sense.  It is about advancement.  It is about soul winning.   If you only win individuals and ignore the culture, you lose, because the culture disciples you and your children.   You must disciple the culture itself.   A child who was taught the ten commandments in school is not only much more likely to get saved, but they are also less likely to do the kinds of things that push people away from God — such as abuse children.

America is being destroyed because the only people who believed the Bible after 1900 were people who didn’t believe in discipling cultures, just people.   So we have a culture that is heathen.  We have slowly started to fight back, but it’s a massive fight.   More in these implications in a later post.

 

 

 

Church Planting Principles II

Here are a few more points about church planting, as a sequel to my last note.  Most of the principles on this list are closely interrelated.

1.  More people will leave you than will stay with you.  I know this sounds mathematically impossible, but it’s actually the case.  Most people that come will only be with you for a season, they will not be long term co-planters.  There are different groups of these:

A.  Visitors.  They come for a week or a few weeks and just don’t really connect.

B.  Prospects.   These people become invested to the point where they self identify with your church, but as you get to the realm of trying to work with them, it doesn’t work and they leave.  This takes 2-6 months.

C.  Members.  These people have been with you for more than a year and you are personally connected to them.  They leave for all kinds of reasons.  Sometimes they leave because your ministry was a success.  Their life got fixed in some important way, and now they need a different kind of ministry than what you are providing.

Of course you can make mistakes and run people off or miss opportunities with people who could have stayed, but if you have a heart to love people, most of the time they leave it’s really not you.  It’s that they are either not a fit or not open to what your ministry is providing.

2.  Apollos principle. I found this in one my readings and it really described something.  The concept is that Apollos, though a seasoned minister, was willing to submit to additional discipleship and training in order to be a part of the group he was moving with.  Many people will come to your church with skills and gifts, but those can only be used in the context of your church only useful if they agree to be taught by you.  The only people that are really a part of your plant are those that are submitted to your leadership.   A true potential leader will understand this, and will have the humility to do it regardless of what they bring to the table.

3.  Some problems are best ignored. The best solution to some problems and problem people you will encounter in planting a church is to simply ignore them.  Giving any energy to them just feeds a fire.   People that cause problems usually disappear after you stop trying to “fix” them.  Most people will be just as happy as you are to avoid a blow up and all of the drain it incurs.

4.  Excise the cancer. When a problem cannot be ignored, it should be addressed head on.  Some problems need direct confrontation, and you should not be afraid to do it.  This is when someone is actively destructive and wants to stick around.  Again, to build a church you want people who are pursuing God.  These are the ONLY PEOPLE YOU CAN ACTUALLY HELP.  People that want to blame will hurt the sheep and slow you down a lot.  A confrontation is actually the most ministering thing you can do for some people — look how often Jesus did it.   If they repent, you can work with them.  They rarely do this on the initial confrontation, but they may come back a lot later and do so.   Reconcile at that point, don’t play footsie before that.

5.  Give people space to make their own mistakes.  This is more pastoral wisdom than church planting per se, but as a pastoral person, sometimes you really just have to let people walk out the consequences of their own choices.  You can see that it’s going nowhere, but the only way for them to see it is for them to actually experience it.  The results of that experience will lead them to a place of more openness to hear the truth that you would have told them had they been open, or they will move on.You couldn’t be the pastor if you didn’t see this.  But you can’t live someone else’s life, you can only coach them, which means helping to shape their lives in the God direction.

6.  Age of the senior leader caps the church.   This is a piece of stock wisdom that every leader needs to know.  People often have trouble following someone who is more than a few years younger than they are.  Of course at some level age should not matter — comparative spiritual maturity is what really counts, but the fact is that it does, and you should spend your energy accordingly.  It is not an accident that the biggest churches in America are led by men between ages 45-65.

7.  Momentum is the name of the game. Churches grow because they have momentum.  They are doing stuff that people want to be involved in.  They feel like a place where something is happening.   If you are not creating that, then you will not grow.  There are many things that can create or sap momentum, but the key thing is understanding that that is what actually grows the church.  People want in on action, not on a vision statement.

8.  Teamwork, Teamwork, Teamwork.   Building a team is a hard process.  It’s a microcasm of building the church.  Working with your team is easier because they are more mature and committed to God than the average person that comes through the door, but it’s harder because problems inside your team will discourage you and hurt you a lot more.   Ultimately what teamwork means is a group of people all pushing toward the same goals, and encouraging each other in the process. When you reach this stage of singular purpose and mutual encouragement, suddenly things will just happen.  Until you reach it, you will struggle to figure out why they are not happening.

What you need to know about Church Planting

I’ve been involved in church planting for 8 years, but I realized that I’ve never done any formal study on the subject.  After all they don’t teach this kind of stuff in seminary (usually, apart from a special course).   Too often, seminary is about parsing Greekgreek verbs and understanding the filioque, not about the things that make you a good ministry leader.  That means that the real training ends up happening on the job.  There is all kinds of “folk knowledge” possessed by experienced pastors and ministry leaders and an associated literature.  Perhaps it’s just because pedagogy often lags behind practice.  Also, as you know there are some things that require you to actually have some experience before the learning can really take (hence why most schools want people to have work experience before their MBA)  So if I had learned a lot when I first started on the church plant thing it would have just been a theory to accept or reject against my understanding of the Bible, but now I have to test it against what practically happens. So there will probably be more follow-on posts, but here are some of my initial reflections:

1. Church Planting is hard. – Our thinking about church planting is biased by two things. First, the zeal and excitement of doing it.  Secondly, the success stories.   It’s a lot like starting your own business.  The Bill Gates stories encourage you to do it, but that’s the .0001% case.  Something like 80% of church plants fail.   I actually found this to be an encouraging point.  If what you are doing feels hard and it’s helpful to know it actually is hard.  I feel more realistic about the entrenched long term mindset that will be needed to pull it off.

2. Hard places are hard.  I have been attracted to and surrounded by people who are also attracted to something other than “move to white suburbia anywhere USA.”  We don’t want to just open up another franchise, we want to change things.  The catch is, that the easiest way to start a big church is to move into one of those areas.  In fact, the majority of people who have randomly found out about us are from those areas.  We chose to be here on the edge of the city, which is harder for all kinds of reasons, the biggest of which is that the ready made, reasonably healthy church people mostly live not exactly where we are.  Not that the goal is to reach church people, but you need a core of them to start with.

3.  Most plants start with something.  The last plant I was on, was not a raw plant.  It was a replant of a work that someone had been working on for 15 years before we arrived.  So it was a matter of bringing new resources and energy to something that existed.  What we are doing in Cincinnati is literally start from nothing.  Many church plants happen as a “spin off” from an existing church.  This means that the challenge is to turn 50 into 500.  Our challenge is to turn 5 into 50.  It’s made more difficult by the fact that we are not associated with a well known and recognizable brand.   On the other hand, we’ve gotten a lot of leads from our association with Curry Blake.  He has a national draw, and people are always looking to connect with people who believe in his message.

4.  People don’t just bang on your door. Leaders are tempted to think that having a building or a sign, or mailers, or a great web site will draw people, but generally speaking these are kind of “side items.”   They will help bring a person or two, but they are not going to build a church.   To build a church, you need a group of Christian who believe in your message, and you need a strategy that is going to bring unbelievers and nominal Christians into your orbit.

5.  Not every visitor is a great member. A segment of people who are willing to visit a tiny church plant are willing because they are disgruntled in some way.  They don’t like the established church, it’s not working for them, etc.  For this group, the problem is not with the church, it’s with them. You don’t want people who you have to bend over backwards to please or accommodate. They will only exhaust you and blow others up. Warning signs are people have been to a zillion churches recently or who introduce themselves with a complaint about the last church.  So you are really on the look out for people you can add to your vision, and body.  You need folks who can walk with you through the bumps associated with planting a church.

6. Church service is for the uncommitted. That’s right.  Most hard core Christians get bored at a regular service.  They don’t need (or want) to hear another message on tithing, or general exhortations about obeying the Bible, etc.  They aren’t obsessed with having their kids well entertained a church, etc.  HOWEVER, these things are very important to the less committed,  And most Christians fall in this bucket.  If you start a church that only accommodates the hard core, be prepared to be small.  That’s not the real answer though, because these people need to the hard core folks to pull them and their children into a more serious walk with God.

7.  Get tough, pastor. Being a leader of a church is emotionally taxing.  You are a kind of adult parent.  You are the person people complain about or complain to.  As just a member of a team I didn’t really see this, but as the leader of the team I get it.  It gets lonely fast when things get hard.  It’s important for the team to respond together whenever one comes under attack.  I think this is what Jesus was looking for out of his closest disciples in the Garden.  They let him down, but your team can learn not to.  You will have your kindness returned with evil, and you will be required to do the right thing back.  You have to learn to become emotionally flat line regardless of what happens.  Jesus even says to rejoice when these things happen.  Wow, I’m not there yet.  But I realize I have to be unfazed when someone blows up their lives, or leaves the church.  That’s the way it works.  I’m gong forward toward God and so is the plant.

More to come…

Book is out!

It’s been quite on the blog here lately because I’ve been working hard to get my book finished, and it is now done. I encourage you to take a look on Amazon. This is the first of several books I plan to write in the next few years drawing from material you’ve been reading on this site.  This first book is about finding personal freedom.  It is based on my life experience and our experience working with men in recovery.  God bless!

PS. You can also order direct from the publisher. Same price to you but more comes back to me to help me recoup cost.

Salt and Light for “just Moms”?

In keeping with Will’s theme about Salt and Light paradigm below, I wanted to post some thoughts here.  As this paradigm relates to the home life, I mean.

For many years, I struggled with finding meaning in staying at home… as many stay-at-home Mom’s or mom’s-to-be probably do. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to stay at home with my kids as much as it was not knowing how to do that AND be effective for God’s kingdom.  After being brought up in a cutting-edge church, I didn’t know how to let the dream die of reaching others.  Maybe if I had just wanted to have one or two kids and then go back to work, I could have dealt with the demands of full-time ministry.  But I was persuaded by the active stay-at-home Christian moms camp that raising children was a ministry and a full-time one at that.  I became persuaded that I wanted to have a larger family, stay at home, and homeschool.  And I didn’t see any way to do that to my utmost while supporting my husband’s more radical dreams.

Maybe that’s just because I didn’t know many pastor’s wives or missionary wives personally.  I had only had close contact with a few and most of them—forgive me—”settled” for being a home-oriented Mom with just radical Christian views (as opposed to leading a radical life).  I don’t in any way mean to denigrate the Mom job.  Or overestimate what “radical” means.  But I could not reconcile the fiery, Pentecostal, evangelistic missionary Mom with the meek, conservative, homeschooling domestic Mom.  I saw two lives and wondered how it was possible to get them both.  One role always seemed to win out at some point, at the expense of the other.  The fiery Moms had home lives I didn’t envy.  The meeker Moms had church lives I didn’t envy.

Over the last ten years, I have been trying to make sense of this polarization.  I have asked Christian women in leadership all kinds of questions, and tried to make sense of their answers.  From afar, I admire a number of Christian women leaders today who have managed to rear children, grandchildren, and stay the course… Beth Moore, Lisa Bevere, Nancy Leigh DeMoss, etc.   But I still feel like there are two people inside of me, as I raise my children and serve my husband.  One is like a nun, treasuring the daily duties of life and trying to find the sacred in them.  And the other is like a soldier in battle, forsaking personal tranquility to grab hold of the desperate lives of the lost around me and my city.  At times, either one of these roles might be burning bright.  But it has been hard for me to meld them into one person, consistent and progressive.

But now comes my point.

The Salt and Light paradigm addresses both of these roles.  On the one hand, raising children is a “salt”ministry—a ministry to our culture and future.  I mean, we do it today but we do it for tomorrow.   My “salt self” is my home life, that domestic part of me that is trying to separate from the world and raise my children differently.  It pursues my childrens’ character and education, knowing that they are part of the next generation and can make a difference.  It chooses to forego television, sports, and worldly entertainment in our home.  It talks differently, disciplines differently, and incorporates different subjects into the “core curriculum.”  Not to earn brownie points but to be sure that our family and children can season the culture around us and not be thrown out and trampled by men. My “salt” self knows that the devil strives to capture hearts and minds on massive scales, to shift society.  And that beliefs are tested again and again by each generation that arises, often resulting in political and moral shift.  So if I don’t teach my kids the values and beliefs they need, they will never win the cultural engagement war.  On a practical level, I put a lot of hope in them, and I invest.

However, I cannot be satisfied that my life’s sole purpose is wrapped up in them.  My children are not my badges of success (or failure!).  And God’s judgment of my life will include more than how I stewarded them… it will include how I stewarded myself.  So many home-based Christian teachings implicitly teach stay-at-home mom’s that they live FOR their children.  Even THROUGH them sometimes, vicariously.  When they say that staying home is enough, homeschooling is enough, raising a godly generation is enough—they are wrong.  It is not enough.  If it were, then it would mean how my children “do” is the measure of my success.  (Especially how my boys “do” because girls are often expected to just raise the next generation, perpetuating the predicament.)  It would mean that my mothering role is “enough” for God.  All I would need to do, then, is stay connected to the Lord personally while I fulfill that role, and He will think I’m faithful.  Have a great quiet time, pursue my religious studies and habits.  And if I put all my being into the home life, so the story goes, then God is satisfied.  And if He is, then I certainly should be.

So why do so many evangelical moms with a fire breathing deep in their hearts FEEL that it’s not?  Because it isn’t!

The “Light” side of me burns to reach out, to reach more than my family.  The “light” self yearns to do the same things as my husband… to touch others, to counsel and pastor, to travel and heal.  The “Light” self notices that a culture is dying around me NOW, not just around my kids’ generation.  It knows that the gospel is needed now, and the expansion of the Kingdom of heaven and everything it entails!  Yet so many neo-feminist Christian teachings implicitly teach that women should pursue their destinies, fulfill their potential, and take advantage of their giftings.  The focus is all on self, and the obligation to God ostensibly through self-actualization.  I don’t believe that is the right philosophy either—women end up with unhappy marriages and children because they’ve pursued the talents God gave them.  Or maybe their families are supportive, but the moms have missed a lot… just like a dad who worked away from home.  The Kingdom of God has gained more souls, and God will be happy that His talents were stewarded… but the people who are not delivered and free are our kids.  Or the people who were not counseled with revelation were our own spouses.  The people who were jealous for Mom’s time and attention that she showed others were her own family.

The truth is that Salt and Light must work together, as Jesus said.  If mothering is an end all to itself, then I have no mission.  I’m a soldier with no battle.  Just a nice prayer journal.  But if Christian ministry is an end to itself, then I am selfish.  I cannot meet the needs of a spouse and children properly.   I need both.  I need to be a mother with a battle to fight… a “salty” family that is also “light” to the world.  As best I can, I need to see my family as a missionary family who tries to serve others in battle while trying to raise little people who will do the same.  For I must focus on my family.  I must put in the time to produce healthy children who will then propagate healthy relationships and values with others as they grow up… “salting” the culture.  I must also put in the time to grow them the holy way, which is often more time-consuming that relying on cultural shortcuts to do it.

But I can’t win the family and lose everything else.  If all I’ve done is invested in four small people, then I have spent the bulk of my life making only four disciples.  What about everyone else around me, while I was doing that?  What about this woman I know who battles addiction to meth and has had her children taken away from her?  What about this young girl I know who is getting into trouble because she fears she has angered God irrevocably?  What about ministry at my local crisis-pregnancy center, or marriage counseling with some couples who need it?  Do I have time to counsel them on weekend, and pray with them in my messy house, or run out for coffee with them when Dad is home?  Can I fit in a bible study and home group, and church, and AWANA, and whatever else everyone needs?  Well, practically speaking, sometimes no.  Sometimes it takes all my energy sometimes to make it through a day.  I don’t feel I have the time for the hurting world out there.  I don’t have the mental energy, peace, or answers for others.  But that’s too bad because the New Covenant requires me to walk in the supernatural, the Holy Spirit, and the fountain of life that never runs dry.  It calls me above the Jewish commandment to raise holy children in the obedience of the Lord.  It calls me out into the lost and dying world, to touch and give and mend.

It’s too bad I can’t do this every day in the way that I want.  But I do know that’s my call.  I can’t just put in all the family effort every day and know that in twenty or thirty years, I might be able to say I was a success.  If my children are as perfect as every childtraining book offers that they could be, then I’ll know I discharged my duty to God.  And if they raise healthy Christian children, then I’ll really be Supermom.  No, I have to see my ministry as present day too.  I am not just ministering to the life of twenty or thirty years down the road, I am ministering to today.  The kids somehow have to fit into the ride, the larger ride of serving God today.  Even if that means a less than perfect meal, a less well-thought out curriculum, or a messy house.  It has to go beyond a thrilling quiet time, a wonderful marriage, and a home nice enough for a home group.  It has to move into a realm where people on drugs are set free, marriages are saved, women in prostitution are given hope, those who are lost find answers, people who are suicidal are given an alternative, and the poor’s needs are addressed.

In some way, I think I’ve always known this even in the beginning of my search.  But putting it to work in real life has been so hard now that marriage has set in and children have showed up.  Part of me has had no idea how to do this.  And my two selves within, my Salt and Light, have sometimes been at war with one another, threatening to overtake the other because the cause is so strong.  Sometimes I even see churches and Christian groups at war over which cause is more important.  But just like evangelism and cultural transformation, one can’t win over the other.  We have to reach both individuals and society.  We have to help both the family and the community.  We have to address both the Christians and the lost.  I think the Salt and Light paradigm has helped me reconcile the inward and outward call, as it pertains to myself and family.  It is helping me see that the call really is two-fold and impossible (in the flesh).  It is not, as each camp would tell me, that one of the missions is ultimately more important… and therefore attainable.  I have to be both the meek stay-at-home Mom and the fiery outreaching Mom whenever necessary, in whatever way I can handle for the day I am in.  I have to live the world of plans and spontaneity, routines and ruining them, and future and present!

But the call will not be simplified…