Category: Being the Church

New Adventurers

Read Sarah’s proposition Could Church Not Suck?  Well Sarah, I hope you are discovering that the answer is Yes! Actually, Church can not suck! God’s heart is for people and He is with them in many, many places outside of the four walls of the sanctuary. The missional ideas that Hirsch is talking about takes us all out of the church and into the world. It’s dangerous out there where God is but you can’t beat it. Come on and join the adventure…

Kindness

My sermon this morning was on the fruit of the Spirit shown in kindness. We suffer a surfeit of kindness in our world, that goes without saying. The saddest truth that came out in the message was that we have allowed the cultural self-sufficiency influence the way that we act toward one another within the body.

This takes countless forms. We refuse help when it offered in kindness from others. We suffer in silence because we do not want to appear weak in the eyes of others. We don’t listen. In the end, we appear little different from the world around us. There is no fruit to harvest.

The spirit nurtures kindness within us because it reflects the character of the One in whose image we are made. God is kind and merciful toward us in our brokenness, taking His tarnished image and cleaning and polishing it so that it can be attractive to others who see it in us. The Spirit moves us then to allow this fruit to be harvested from our lives. As the Father is kind to us, we in turn are to exhibit this same kindness to those within our sphere.

It takes courage to be kind. Ask and you shall receive it in abundance.

(That wonderful sketch is by Kathe Kollwitz)

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Heartbreak Addie

I suppose it was inevitable that  Addie Kubisiak would be begin to be the subject of scorn and derision from many who position themselves above her rather than alongside her. Addie has made a horrible error, one that will affect her for the remainder of her days but we must remember, it is God who will judge the hearts of those who stand before Him. Regardless of the feelings that well up in our souls at our revulsion to her actions our calling to fall into step with her, love and accept her for who she is – a fellow struggler who slipped in a little deeper than we hope ever happens to us- and to walk her the rest of the way home. Pray for her to know the God of forgiveness and restoration and pray for the child who is already home.

 

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Love, Acceptance, & Forgiveness

 Out of the hundreds of books in my library, there are two that I can identify as having profoundly affected the trajectory of my ministry. The first is thee subject of this week’s profile, Love, Acceptance & Forgiveness by Jerry Cook. In this slim volume (128 pages) Cook invites us to see beneath the surface of people to the Imago Dei that might be covered by layers of troubles and poor choices. He rebelled against the Church that chooses judgment, choosing instead to lead his church to practice love and forgiveness in all of their interactions.

Of the many vignettes that fill the book, the one that stands out as the most transformative is the story of the former pastor who is seeking a place to worship. He has divorced and remarried and, because of the adultery that led to this new relationship and the destruction of his previous ministry, he has been denied fellowship from other bodies in town. Cook recounts the heartbreaking conversation and the restoration that followed as fellowship was restored. As the Pastor, Jerry could have elected to practice judgment and barred the man and his family from entry into the body in the name of protecting his flock from their influence but instead, the transformation was ignited by the practice of love, acceptance, and forgiveness.  

This is but one of the numerous examples that Cook uses the emphasize his belief that the Church was not meant to play God in judging others and condemning them for their mistakes and choices. Rather, he correctly declares that the church is to continue the restorative ministry of Jesus Christ, who wades into the world and its problems and offers the one solution that works every time it is tried; the love of Christ, the acceptance of all by Christ, and the forgiveness gained by Christ.

This book has been in print since 1979 and it reads as well today as it did when first printed. This is a book for the pastor and the folks in the pews. Less a how-to than a polemic against the fortress mentality of many churches, Cook’s words may be just the thing that the Spirit will use to move your heart as well. Add this one to your library, you won’t be sorry.

The title of this blog was obviously borrowed from the title of this book. The tagline also comes from an epithet thrown at Cook’s church because of their habit of welcoming into fellowship all the human refuse cast aside by other congregations who are more interested in keeping the carpets clean, the drapes smoke free, and the sheep free of the influence of the fallen than they are in ministering to them. My consistent prayer for our church is to gain the same title – garbage collectors!

 

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We Failed Arrested Teen (p2)

I’m just a Pastor but I wonder if the world we’re a part of, the bloggers/myspace/youtube/social-networking/Web 2.0 world that is supposed to ‘connect’ us is doing just the opposite. We are connected through the wires and ‘waves but we don’t connect in life. How does someone in trouble like Addie Kubisiak fall through the cracks? Perhaps the anonynmity of the culture contributed to her ability to hide her troubles from those who could have come alongside her like her friend here. (Be sure to scroll down to the bottom to see the personal note.) 

Peace, Love & Understanding

Jesus didn’t leave the Church behind so that we would form these little fortresses of safety to keep the world at bay until He returns. Our mission was to continue His ministry among those who needed it the most. Let’s take a moment today to think about what it means to ‘be’ the church rather than just belonging to the church. Declan sings about our mission…

Recovering the Danger -The Forgotten Ways

When Hirsch refers to the church buildings in his book, I believe he is conferring the ‘ fortress mentality’ onto a recognizable structure and not criticizing the bricks of the cathedral. The fortress mentality arose in the period of Christendom where the chief organizing principle for believers was the church. It lay at the core of the social structure of the believers life and by necessity, as it was tied to its foundation, it was attractional. If you were not attracted to the principles of the church, you found yourself outside of the fortress walls. Hirsch correctly points out that with a few exceptions, this organizational model doesn’t work in the modern world.

It might be overlooked by the casual reader but the Stark quote that Hirsch employs to help explain the inverse shape of the missional movement is genius. From Stark’s For the Glory of God, he quotes:

Far too long, historians have accepted the claim that the conversion of the Emperor Constantine caused the triumph of Christianity. To the contrary, he destroyed its most attractive and dynamic aspects, turning a high-intensity, grassroots movement into an arrogant institution controlled by an elite who often managed to be both brutal and lax.

The return to the grassroots, high intensity community of faith is at the heart of the missional church. Rather than reliance upon the old attractional models of the fixed cathedral, the faith of mission grows legs and takes it to the very tribes that each congregation is most attuned to reaching.