Alexi and Emotions

Alexi, my sweet wife preached at our church this week. She is not a fan of writing sermons. By Friday she said “I’m so glad this is note my job!” That was good. Because I was watching the kids for three days and I was really glad that was not my job.

One of the thoughts that really struck me was a fairly simple thought she offered: “I made my faith, and not my emotions the lead in my life change.”

That may seem like a fairly simple idea, but it may be one critical thing that most people who confess Christ never do. And it may be one reason people get disillusioned with the apparent lack of life change in Christ-confessors.

The fact is that most of us think and evaluate things emotionally and so not think of our faith as something that has the right to pretty aggressively reshape us. If we do not make our feelings and intellectual impulses that issue from our personal dogmas open to the instructing word of Christ, then is it any wonder our faith will not seem transcendent when we clip its wings so radically- when we believe, but really don’t.

This is why I often say, if the Bible and Christ do not annoy and anger your periodically, you’re either not being honest with yourself or not reading very carefully…or you don’t believe much of anything at all.

If the bucking bull of our emotional will is ridden by a  spirit instructed faith, there ought to be an emotional rodeo within us, at least for awhile- and often again when we least expect it.

A Model for Making Disciples…Pt 1

At our larger church it is important that we can help Biblically and Spiritually illiterate people become growing disciples of Jesus- that is, on their way to ‘fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.’

But is one is to simplify this desire, what are we trying to do with these folks. What are we going to DO in order to create the likelihood that God the Spirit will use these means and make the seed we plant and work we do cause real growth.

So there are 3 very difficult questions every larger church needs to ask.

1. What is the simplest expression of what we’re after?
2. What mechanisms are best designed to bring people to these ends?
3. What actions are we involved in that confuse this, or where are we undermining alignment and momentum by neglecting focus?

Answering the first question is notoriously difficult. It is not a nuanced approach, and I think most mature Christians see their faith as pretty nuanced, and not the function of a couple actions or ministries. And what are we after? Should we gauge it by a description of the use of disciplines? So a FDFOC (Fully devoted Follower of Christ) is someone who, for example:

1. Reads the Bible regularly
2. attends public Worship
3. is Involved in Christian Community/Fellowship
4. Practices evangelism
5. Practices prayer and meditation/reflection
6. serves and gives sacrificially

This is a pretty good diagnostic, but there are two problems. First, the list is too long. Most church growth models will say 3 things is the max. 6 is double 3. Secondly, none of this tells you whether your church is growing more religious or more loving. What is the motivation here? Is it fear or pride? Or is it love? Is it being motivated by a love for Jesus and the Gospel? Is we don’t know, that a pretty stinking important knowledge gap.

But what’s our alternative?

We could use Richard Lovelace/Tim Keller’s 5 areas of activity:

1. Evangelism
2. Discipleship
3. Worship/prayer
4. Cultural renewal
5. Mercy.Justice

But still we have the same problems as before- just with 5.

We could use the lists of virtues. But which list? The Classical 4 (fortitude, Justice, Prudence, Temperance), the church’s 7 that include the classical 4 plus the Pauline triad (Faith, Hope and Love)? The Boy Scout 12?  The 7 deadly sins and their remedies?

I think most of us would instinctively say no to a list of virtues, but if virtue does not make a list of some kind, will it make an emphasis of any kind? And if not, have we given in to a Gospel of therapy?

What about the 12 temperaments that are the Fruit of the Spirit? These and other internal approaches bring with them the nightmare of evaluation problems. How do measure whether the congregation is growing in peace, patience, kindness, goodness…and so on…

Here is my solution: We have to focus on outputs and actions. If we think we can manage growth in the atomic level, we’re micro managing God. We have to make empirical evaluation our first mode of evaluation and internal evaluation the emotional check on the process by interviewing people and small group and ministry leaders over time.

There fore I’ll advocate three main outputs that I think lead strongly to real growth:

1. Communion- with God and people
2. Service- as Way of Life and in projects
3. Learning- about the Bible and the Gospel

Let me take these in reverse order…

Learning:

The Willow Creek Association’s Reveal study made clear that personal interaction with the Bible is key to long term Christ Centeredness. This is true and increasingly hard in a culture that has a declining appetite for linear thinking, serious reading and so on. So this is a goal, but one we move people into over some steps. Included in this is my acceptance of Tim Keller’s emphasis on the Gospel. If we do not instill the Gospel in people we’ll hurt them deeply and push them away from God as they engage in religious rigor and get less and less out of it. Only the Gospel can get them to do the right things for the right reason and only through it can they know God and be made in his image, instead of imagining a God much like them.

Service:

Service offers 4 things. First it helps people God loves. Second it teaches us obedience and the obedience is good and fulfilling. Third, it creates a credible witness for Christ through his church. and Fourth, it gets people out of themselves for a little while and begins to break down self focus and over internalization in our human experiences. All of these things are necessary, and when done in conjunction with learning is integral to real transformation.

Communion:

Although saying Christianity is all about a relationship can be trite and false in one way, it is absolutely true in another. The Gospel is about reconciliation and restoration and these are irreducibly relational ideas. So even though we might not commune with God in a pseudo-romantic sense because of his hiddenness, salvation is absolutely relational in that it is reconciliation between us and our creator that comes form the forgiveness that is bought by Christ’s atonement. So everyone must come into a relationship with god at least in this sense. They have to be made right with him. And then they should try to grow in mystical union with him, so long as that mysticism is within the other scriptural parameters of Christian faith. This includes Worship, Prayer, reflection, solitude, fasting, participating in the sacraments of baptism, confirmation (for paedo-baptists) and communion, journaling and so on…

But not only do we need to commune with God only, but also with others. This is not just hanging out, but requires a more serious spiritual concept like ‘fellowship’ or even deeper ‘communion’ on which is built ‘community’. The move to the word ‘community’ is simply a desire to get away form the more sterile and non-intimate connotation ‘fellowship’ has for more Christ-haunted people that are leery of the Churchiness of their youth. But we have to remember that our community forms us. As Keller has quoted in his talk on Contextualization- we were deformed through community, it only makes sense that restoration would come partly through the context of a community.” And in another place “You are who you eat with.” We are deeply influenced by who we are around and therefore just getting around the right people is a big part of transformation.

See Part 2 for a structuring of these three outputs.

Some quotes…

“He who doesn’t bow to the rudder, breaks on the rocks.” –Mortimer Adler (editor of great books series from the University of Chicago)

“When we have a constant abundance of options, we can easily come to think everything is optional. Just think then what a great offence nature and logic and death might become.”

Ken Meyers, long time interviewer for Mars Hill Audio, says something similar to this here. I’d really recommend this talk. His discussion on the crisis of authority being more important than the crisis of truth is insightful and important. 

Some thoughts ‘On the Priesthood’

The work On the Priesthood is a work by St. John Chrysostom from the 4ht century (Born about 345ad). He was an extraordinarily talented young man and studied in the top school of rhetoric of his day. To the great disappointment of his teacher, he gave he is life not to politics or the legal profession, but to the church in the priesthood and later as bishop. In fact his teacher is said to have said at the end of his life that his successor “…should have been John, had the Christians not stolen him from us (stoics).”

Chrysostom is best known for his many sermons on scripture and he is one of he few ancient fathers that gave himself to the systematic preaching of Biblical books.

Although On the Priesthood is about the Christian ministry, it reads to the modern evangelical like more of an indictment on the secluded life. The super structure of John’s argument is that he is happy and, through great struggle, holy in his monastic seclusion, and he could not properly fulfill the work of he priest in the ‘secular’ work.

(it is important to note that in the early and Medieval church he word ‘secular’ referred to priest that had parishes in communities and were forced to live among the people. It did not begin as a reference to the non-religious segment of society. By this original meaning, there should be nothing more secular than the Christian or the Christian ministry)

First he notes the difficulty of the ministry:

“…for more stormy billows vex the soul of the priest than the gales which disturb the sea. And first of all is the most terrible rock of vainglory…this is so dangerous to me even now, when no necessity of any kind impels me to that abyss (meaning he was safe from real temptation while hidden away in the monastery), I am unable to keep clear of the snare: but if anyone were to commit this charge to me, it would be all the same as if he tied my hands behind my back and delivered me to the wild beasts.”

He goes on to explore all the inner turmoil that is always part of the interpersonal and political world of the minister:

“Do you ask what those beasts are? They are wrath, despondency, envy, strife, slanders, accusations, falsehood, hypocrisy, intrigues, anger against those who have don no harm, pleasure at the indecorous acts of fellow ministers, sorrow at their prosperity, love of praise, desire of honor (which indeed most of all drives the human soul headlong into perdition), doctrines devised to please, servile flatteries, ignoble fawning, contempt of the poor, paying court to the rich…favors…sordid fear suited only to the basest of slaves,  the abolition of plain speaking, a great affectation of humility, the banishment of truth, the suppression of convictions and reproof, or rather the excessive use of them against the poor, while against those who are invested with power no one dare open his lips.”

This is about as good a list as you’ll find anywhere for what ministry is like. These are many of he great pressures, and I do suspect they increase when one is not in the monastery and working in a real church in an actual community that is diverse in it’s population’s devotion.

But the basis of Chrysostom’s argument is that these pressures are so intense, and he is so weak, that entrance into the priesthood cannot be asked of him. He insinuates that such a move would surely les to his perdition.

This however, even he knew could not be a lasting argument. We know this practically because history tells us that he became priest and soon after became the bishop of Constantinople- the New Rome and most influential seat of influence in the empire. And so deeply did he become entangled in the evil affairs of the secular work, that he paid with exile in the last years of his life because of the intrigues of cunning and evil men.

But is not only this record that points to this resolution for John. He must have struggled with hiding his gifts under a bushel in the cloister.

At the end of the book he says: “…I am not myself able to believe that it is possible for one who has not labored for the salvation of his fellow to be saved, nor did it at all profit the wrenched man in the Gospel that he had not diminished his talent; but he perished through not increasing it and bringing it doubled to his master.”

Yet what held him back was his fear of a greater punishment if he should become an evil shepherd under the weight of all the evils the priest can fall into. He said, “Nevertheless, I think my punishment will be milder when I am called to account, because I have not saved others, then it would be if I should destroy myself and others too by becoming far worse than it would be if I should destroy myself and others too be becoming war worse after so great an honor.”

He held the priesthood so high, and knew it’s dangers so intimately, that he despaired over the very possibility of doing the work successfully. But if such piety prevails, the leadership of the church will inevitably fall into the hands of less pious and lesser men, and she will perish all the same in the name of piety and humility.

Ultimately, whatever the dangers, one must leave the cloister and accept that the work must be done. the flock may be eaten by bad shepherd, but a leaderless flock is eaten just the same. Chrysostom eventually accepted this call, and he became one of the great giants of his generation in one of the great ages of the church.

A silly little satirical website

Here is a silly little satirical website that is taking some shots at the Po-Mo, Post Evangelical, Post Conservative, So on and so forth folks.

I’m not sure I like this approach, but I’m not sure I don’t. Tell me what you think.

If you don’t get it, don’t worry. You don’t need to try.

The Origin of Sincere Disunity Pt 1

From Worship ministry Gathering Talk:

Unity, Gifting and Passion: Thoughts on the cohesion of Christ’s church

_____________________________________1 Corinthians 12:7-13 ⁷ Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. ⁸ To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, ⁹ to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, ¹⁰ to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. ¹¹ All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. ¹² The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. ¹³ For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

________________________________________

      It’s common knowledge that there is a unity and diversity in the church. 1 Corinthians 12 is the landmark passage for this revelation exploring our unity in the Spirit in the first half and our diversity in the Spirit in the second half of the chapter.

       This passage makes clear BOTH are from the Holy  Spirit. We are united by the Holy Spirit’s work of salvation (see also Ephesians 4:1-4) and we are also made diverse by the Spirit’s work. We’re made the same and different.

        This really should be great news for Christians. We have all the gifts we need to do the job (diversified) and we’re all focused on the same job (unified)- Leading people to be full worshippers of Jesus. We have exactly what we need. The diversity is necessary for us to have the capability to do our work. The Unity is necessary for us to all be doing the same overall work.

      So then why are so many sincere gifted Christians and church ministries at odds with each other or experience a very dispassionate unity? And why do these divisions seem to predictably form down the fault lines of gifting? Why does one work of the Spirit seem to so handily destroy his corresponding work?

        Now, one thing I do know is I’ve never really read anything about this anywhere. I’ve heard people speak about the unity of the Spirit. I’ve heard people talk about the Diverse gifts of the Spirit. Yet in the 16 years I’ve been a Christian, I’ve often seen the one destroy the other, and I have never had anyone explain to me why reality is so different than we should Scripturally expect.

First it should be observed that the church at Corinth, to which this letter was written, was having the same problem. They had plenty of spiritual gifts but not much spiritual unity. The apostle’s prescription in chapter 13 is love, but it is no strange thing that we would still be curious as to why this is so commonly the case. However, we can at least comfort ourselves with the Bible’s realism and honesty.

The apostles remedy for these problems is love. More specifically, love expressing itself through humility. Humility is one major theme in 1 Corinthians, and in each case the apostle goes out of his way to argue why humility is important and why it is also right, true and fitting.

In the next two parts we will explore the psychology of this disunity and rehearse the reminder to humility and its reasoning.

Losing my Religion: the Social Sources of religious decline in Young Adults

Some comments on an article published in Social Forces, Vol. 85, Number 4, June 2007.

I heard a talk by one of the authors from UT Austin, Mark Regnerus.  Regnerus studied under Chrisitan Smith at UNC before he went to Notre Dame. I heard a talk he did at Fuller Seminary on the findings published in his book Forbidden Fruit

The bottom line of interest for me in this article is that the normal factors associated with decline in religious interest in young adults is not as many have thought.

“…the assumption that a college education is the reason for religious decline gathers little support here. Emerging adults who do not attend college are more prone to curb all three types of religiousness…”

For some time it has been considered a truism that college, even Christian college was secularizing. Yet although this seems to have been the prevailing wisdom of the 80’s, some studies are now showing this is no longer the case. the reasons given for this are diverse, but it seems to no longer be the case none the less.

the Writers note: “…In their meta-analysis…since 1990 have notes an increase in student’s religious convictions during college…however religious practice…seems to wane during this period.”

Some social reasons for religious involvement hardly need studies to back them up. Apparently getting married and having babies correlates positively, while sleeping around, binge drinking and co-habitation correlates negatively. Who would have thought? The problem is that this is all just correlation- we cannot know the causal relationship and all this data itself is survey data, with all the problems that can entail.

The bottom line for this study, is that there are a number of possible explications, on that looms large is that American young people are not very well socialized in their religious faith in the first place.

One section notes: “…very many young Americans are so under socialized in their religious faith (before college begins) that they would have difficulty recognizing faith-challenging material when it appeared.”

Hardly a compliment.

In the end they note: “…religious decline is largely attributable to a fairly passive process. Adolescents simply loose their interest, just stop going to church, or are incapable of providing a reason altogether.”

This passive process often happens to a passive mind, and this is entirely in keeping with their real thesis:

“If education, family formation and behavioral explanations do not explain much of the religious decline we see in early adulthood, the phenomenon could also be attributable to processes set in motion during adolescence- namely weak religious socialization.”

That is entirely consistent with what I observe.