on the walk

It is rare that I find myself so completely and thoroughly recommending a book as I am today.  I suppose that with diligence I could find things to disagree with.  In fact I am sure that in the fifth chapter there was a sentence that ended with a preposition.  (That was irony, see the previous sentence.)
But seriously, this book is readable, profound, clear and wonderful.  It seeker friendly. In fact I think that those far from the church and from God would love this book.  (It has plenty of critical things to say about the church and the people who populate it.)  At the same time it is deeply challenging to those that have walked long in the faith.  This challenge is so compelling that as I read I was moved almost to tears and had to stop to confess to God and to thank God for this book.

It is relevant.  It is clearly designed to connect with people that are rarely tempted to open a bible or visit a Bible study class.  At the same time this book is not much more than an extended exegesis of a single parable.

The book is short.  It could easily be read in a quite afternoon. At the same time it is rich.  You could spend a week discussing each chapter.

Now that I have written all this I realize that I ought to be setting you up for some trick like recommending the Gospel of Mark (which does meet all of the criteria I listed above).  But I am not.  I am recommending a regular book.

It is called The Prodigal God.

It is fantastic.

on the walk

-Ethan Magness

I was able to preach today.  I am always grateful when I have that opportunity.  You can catch the audio here.  As always happens when I get to preach, I always have a few leftover thoughts that I wish I could have shared but ran out of time.  I won’t bore you with all of those, but I will share just one choice quote that had to leave on the cutting room floor.

(Actually in the spirit of honesty, this is really more of a paraphrase, I am working from memory.  You can find the original somewhere in the middle of The Great Divorce.)
C.S. Lewis once said something like this:

Anything no matter how good, if it is not given to Jesus, can drag you down into hell.  Likewise, nothing, no matter how evil, if it is given over to Christ can keep you out of heaven.

The truth of that quote sustains me in my darkest times and challenges me in my brightest.

Today in the sermon we all had a rock.  The rock represented those things that are obstacles to our following after Jesus.  Things that we will nto release into his control but instead cling to on our own.

When I  went to church I was pretty sure that I knew what my rock was going to be.  It was as if I was pre-scripting the encounter I was going to have with God based upon the script I have used so many times before.

But as I stood in line holding my rock, I was startled.  I got off script.  I asked God, “What is holding me back from following you?”  And with surprising clarity, I knew.  It wasn’t a sin issue.  That was what I planned to do with my rock.  But that wasn’t it.  I have long ago surrendered the evil in my life over to Jesus and I trust he can handle it.  Instead I was confronted with something good.  Good plans that I have for my life.  Plans that are admirable and important.  But nevertheless they were plan that I had not surrendered to God.  They were my big plans.   How many half-deals I have struck with God offering him most of my life as long as I still get to pursue these big important plans of mine.

And suddenly to my great greif, that was my rock.  Those good plans, those plans so precious to me were my rock.  I was glad that the line moved slow.  It took me a while get up the nerve to set my rock on the stage.

I’m still not exactly happy about it, but I feel a great peace.  I don’t pretend that the temptation to those plans won’t return, but for the moment, I feel a great release of conflict.  I feel like I am following.

on the walk

-Ethan

The spirit of God causes a disturbance.  God creates an opportunity and the church responds.

You can read it all in the second chapter of Acts.

There are a lot of wonderful details in this text that I will ignore.  For this exercise I want to simply consider what this event is as an event. Here are a few things that I notice.

1. They did not plan for this event but they did prepare for it.  They were together and in prayer. This resonates with so much of my experience.  Most of my most effective evangelism has been in situations that I did not plan but I did prepare for.  We prepare not because we can anticipate the specific event but by immersing our selves in prayer and study, in worship and service.
2. God initiates the event and they jump on board.  There is a much quoted line from Bono, that we ought to see where God is working and go there.  I think that is good advice and certainly that is what is followed here. God begins the event.  God empowers the gathered church and draws
3. God has seriously good timing.
4. Peter lets the event that has attracted them draw their attention to Jesus.  He does not ignore the moment and in fact seeks to explain it but he does not dwell there.  This is in contrast to much street preaching today (and even most beach evangelism, etc.)  We just start preaching even though nothing has gathered a crowd and created an atmosphere of interest.  In this case, the work of the spirit has created a setting in which people are interested to hear what Peter will say.  This still happens today.  The work of the spirit may not happen in the same way, but I have seen the church led by God’s spirit work in ways that cause crowds to wonder, “What is going on?”  and as the church answers they get to draw people to Jesus.
5. Peters lets the people respond.  I find it so remarkable, that Peter let’s them ask what they should do.  He presents the truth and lets this truth lead them to the crisis of decision.  And then in that crisis he responds to their questions.

Because this event flows from the work of the spirit, it isn’t exactly repeatable.  Nevertheless we can be a people who are together, and are praying and are prepared so that when God’s spirit creates an opportunity, and those who witness wonder what is happening we can proclaim the gospel in that moment.

on the walk

-Ethan

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2009/01/biblical_litera.html

One of the questions that has stirred Mountain Christian Church to action over the past few years is “If your church ceased to exist tomorrow, would the community around you notice or care?”

In light of this question we have commited ourselves to care for the local community as well as the world. We hope to take light to the world.

I was remined of this commitment as I read this fascinating article (HT: Ben Witherinton III).  These are the reflections of an atheist on the impact of Christianity in Africa.  It is worth your time to read.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article5400568.ece

on the walk

-Ethan

The first event of the history of the church was a prayer meeting and we don’t have very many of those and don’t feel guilty about it.

The second Christian event is a business meeting and that is something we do pretty well. The irony is that I know many Christians who feel guilty about having business meetings. There is this sense that business meetings are too practical and too mundane to be truly spiritual.  Somehow there is a since that a meeting focus on practical issues of leadership and church politics aren’t really Christian activities.  We fail to notice that here it is in Acts, the very second recorded church event is a business meetings.
Take a look at the text.  While the believers are busy waiting and praying Peter stands up with an idea:

Acts 1:15-26

Here are a few observations.

0. This meeting arises out of a community of prayer.
1.  A leader sees the need and calls the meeting.

2.  A leader connects the situation to scripture and lays out the parameters for their action.

3. Everyone participates but it is not a democracy. In the church, the believers deserve to influence the process of selecting their leaders.
4. More than one acceptable option is produced.  (This is so important to me.  I have seen many church decision processes get sidetracked because people are arguing over two good options and because a choice is hard to make, nothing is done.)

5. In the end they roll dice.  (Let’s face it, that is crazy.  I totally want someone to propose that at an upcoming meeting.  Please report back and share with the restof us how that goes.

And a few reflections:

Unless you intend to be a dictator, leadership will involve meetings.  The only way to include others in a process of leadership is to have meetings (and probably lots of meetings).  In fact, from my experience I have concluded that many a great work waits to be done becuase no one has stepped up to call a meeting, gather the right people, set an agenda and insist that a choice is made. This event is Peter’s first important act of leadership.

So for those keeping score at home we have prayer meetings and business meetings.  I can’t wait to see what happens next.

on the walk

-Ethan

The very first church event is a prayer meeting.  As Jesus leaves he instructs the eleven and all the believers to wait in Jerusalem.  In Acts 1:12-14 we find that they obey him and the eleven return to Jerusalem, gather together all the believers and they are constantly in prayer.  This behavior is so very interesting to me.  What inspires these prayers?

Is prayer the Christian way to wait?

We will see as we continue in Acts that prayer meeting were pretty common.  As in this case, it seems to be the thing the church did as a spontaneous response to all sorts of situations.   They may have had scheduled 2nd Tuesday of the Month sort of prayer meetings too.  But what we hear about all the time is drop-to-our-knees-we-need-to-talk-to-God prayer meetings.

I’ll try to resist applying what we find in scripture too quickly to today but here are a few observations.

1. For them, waiting becomes prayer.

2. Everyone was included.

3. Prayer meetings are low-profile events in contemporary church culture.

As we return to make some constructive observations about today’s practice,  we will wrestle with prayer meetings.  I am surprised even as I write this post at the contrast between the importance of prayer meetings in Acts and their importance in the life of the church today.  We know more about the prayer meetings of Acts then we do about their weekly worship services.  I am already learning from this study.

(In the next post we will read about the first all church business meeting.)
on the walk
-Ethan

We cannot underestimate the central authority of the Bible.

I often find myself out of step in many conversations about difficult decisions.   Other people seem much more impressed with the wisdom that can be found in experience or in experts.  Or they are very confident in the wisdom they will gain from the subjective experience they will have as a result of prayer. I am not.  They may be right and I may be wrong, but for me the only authority that carries much weight is the Bible.

This is why I devote so much of my energy to learning how to wisely and faithfully interpret the Bible and apply it to our lives.  As the old line goes, it is our only rule for faith and practice.  That doesn’t merely mean that it is the best one, it means what it says, it is the only one.

Consequently although I am not a biblicist, the Bible is where I will start for any major investigation of what the church is called to believe and how the church is called to live.  So long before I consider what we can know about God through the post-biblical language of the trinity, I am going to consider what we can learn about God from scripture. And long before I consider what I can learn from the traditions of church worship and programming that I have inherited in my life of faith, I want to return to scripture, to ask, “What is the church doing?”

So I am not a biblicist.  I know that God has continued to guide the church and we must learn from the wisdom of all of church history.

But as my rule for faith and practice there is one source.  The Bible.

So that is where we will turn for our foundation of the core events of the church.

on the walk

-Ethan

Consequently I believe that while the Bible is the sufficient rule for faith and practice it is not exhaustive.  The Spirit still speaks.  Christians have had lots of good ideas since the Bible was written and I am please to benefit from those ideas.

There are some Christian circles in which this is not a radical suggestion, but I grew up in a tradition and I minister in a tradition in which biblicism is easy to find.  In fact a major family of this movement of churches goes by the name acapella Churches of Christ.  They will not use instruments in worship.  This is because in the new Testament there is no record of instruments being used in a worship service.  Some other Christians insist that women where head coverings. This is biblicism.  This view holds that every post-biblical innovation is an innapropriate Christian practice.

If this view had a motto it would be “If it is not in the Bible, I won’t do it.”

You may be thinking to yourself, “that sounds like a great motto.”  I agree.  It does sound like a great motto, but believe me, it isn’t.   It turns out that Christians have thought of lots of good things that aren’t in the Bible.  Now of course because they are not in the Bible that means that we can’t pretend they are essential, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t good things.

Here are a few things that are not in the bible,(or at least not in the same way we have them today.)

• Church Buildings
• Offering Trays
• Projectors
• Christmas
• Easter
• Sunday School
• Seminaries
• Heated Baptisteries
• “Quiet Time”
• Church Calendar
• Daily Office
• The Trinity
• Alter calls
• and lots of other stuff why don’t you help me add to my list.

See that is all good stuff.  I wish that it was as easy as being a biblicist.  INstead we have to ask the much more difficult question.  Is this practice or teaching that is not in scripture still faithful to scripture.  Does it exprtess what scripture teaches without going further than scritpure does?

That takes discernment and the wisdom of the whole church guided by the Spirit and that is why I am not a biblicist.

(tune in to my next post for the big BUT…)

And this matters for our conversation about church events.  It won’t be as simple as asking what are the 3 or ten or fifty types of events that the church in Acts had.  Just because they had an event doesn’t mean that we must and just because they didn’t doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.  As we ponder the core evens of the church we will need submit fully to the authority of scripture but to do that we must do more than just copy the church in Jerusalem or Phillipi or Corinth (please don’t copy the church in Corinth).
on the walk

-Ethan

I have been wondering lately what are the core events of the life of the church.  What kinds of events ought we expect from every church in all times and what kinds of events are more tied to the form of the church or the culture it inhabits.

Is a weekly “worship service” necessary?  What should Christian worship look like anyway?

Are outreach events considered core events?  (Certainly outreach is, but what about big events designed for outreach?)

Are teaching events something that every church should have? (Again, I am not asking if teaching should happen, I am asking if its should happen in events.)

Of course churches will have lots of good programming that is beyond core programming but since programming decisions always involve hard choices with limited resources of time and money, it is worth asking what kinds of events lie at the core of the church and what are occasional (even if important) expressions of its mission at a particular cultural moment.
I am choosing the word “core” carefully.  I am not trying to come with a list of essentials.  I don’t want to say that every church will have these events and if a given church licks these events they are less than ideal.  On the other hand it would not surprise me if we could discern a rough handful of events that are so deeply tied to the mission and purpose of God church that they are core events.

I am also choosing the word events with some care.  I don’t mean to pretend that the forms of these events will be static.  On the contrary, I would specifically expect that they forms of these events would need to be redeveloped at least every other generation if not more frequently.

To get started, I will turn to the New Testament.  Let’s wander through it together and see what kinds of events are described on its pages.  That list may not be the whole answer (as I will soon discuss) but it certainly is an important part of the answer.

I hope that many who care about the church and the programming of the church might join me in this conversation. I’ll start with a comment about the dangers of biblicism and then we will get rolling with the first few chapters of Acts.

on the walk

-Ethan