Mission Planning

Tim Chester: “The book of Acts is not the story of the apostles making plans and then putting them into effect. It is the story of the Holy Spirit directing mission” (http://timchester.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/mission-planning-in-acts/).

Total Church, part 2

On the first page of the introduction, the authors tell the story of a man who felt that “ministry has become a production line.” This resonates with some stuff I recently read in Don Carson’s great book, The Cross and Christian Ministry:

We have become so performance-oriented that it is hard to see how compromised we are… Has the smoothness of the performance become more important to us than the fear of the Lord?

I really think this is a lot of what the prophets were railing against, with the way that Israel’s corporate worship had become a show, while God’s people were neglecting the “weightier” matters – faith and justice.

For me this creates some heavy questions:

• Are we more concerned with how people will perceive us than if we are being faithful?
• Do we get more excited about a worship service than things like community prayer, the public reading of the Scriptures, or deep gospel-centered conversation?
• Are we more conscious of the way communion is re-enacted (method) than the reality of what communion is pointing to?

If we can honestly answer these questions in favor of the show rather than the gospel itself, we must call it what it is – idolatry.

I do believe there is a degree of excellence involved in not only our corporate gathering or community group, but in everything we do. We are not demanded half-assery toward anything we do. But, somehow a sense of imperfection must also be communicated. Our definition of excellence is not to be defined by our culture but rather by what it means to represent Jesus to the world. And, all of our efforts are flawed, no matter how neat they may look on the surface.

Another very important point they make is regarding the way we understand the gospel. I think most of us assume that the gospel is “the story of God saving individuals.” But, the reality we see in Scripture, from the beginning, is much bigger than that. It’s “the story of God creating a new humanity.” To this I would add, “for the sake of the world.” God elects His people not simply for themselves, but so that we would go and bear fruit – so we would go and be a blessing to the nations.

The next point, from the introduction, is related to the overall approach to the way we do church. The authors say, “We need Spirit-inspired imagination to reconfigure church and mission around the gospel word and the gospel community.” The rest of the book is their attempt at what that might look like. But, I think most of us fear language like this because our own understandings of gospel and community have been more shaped by the culture (or the American Christian subculture) than by the Scriptures themselves. Interestingly, the majority of the ways we “do church” today were not present in the early church. There were no buildings, no pews (or cool black chairs), no lecture-format preaching, etc. I’m not (and neither are the authors) saying these things are bad, but rather we must accept that they are not strictly biblical but rather pragmatic and shaped by the culture we live in. But, if we move from acceptance and stewarding of these things to proscribing them as necessary for the church to exist, then we have constructed yet another idol.

I feel like I’m underlining half of this book, so this bloggery is going to take a long time. But, I’m really praying that our church would begin to wrestle through some of these things as God continues to move in our midst.

Total Church, part one

I finally received my copy of the US release of Total Church, and my mind is already spinning. The things this book is pointing out are not in any sense innovative. They are surprisingly simple. But, also run so counter to a lot of the ways we all assume church is supposed to be done. I hope to reflect on this book a lot, but here are some initial thoughts…

In the introduction, they tell the story of a couple who was invited out for a meal at “a date three weeks away.” Is this the kind of community we are supposed to be building, where our lives are so wrapped in ourselves and our kids and whatever else we can come up with that it takes several days to get together with someone for coffee or a meal? This seems a far stretch from Acts 2.

The next point is something I am constantly working to reorient myself and my family toward: “Church is not a meeting you attend or a place you enter. It is an identity that is ours in Christ. It is an identity that shapes the whole of life.” I think this starts simply with the way we speak of the church – “going to church” or “at the church.” But, Scripture tells us over and over, WE ARE THE CHURCH! I wonder how much of this confusing language has led to a complete misunderstanding about what the church is.

I’ll end this initial post with one of the promising reasons I’m glad we’re part of Acts 29. We must always stick to the MESSAGE but be flexible with the METHODS. There is no cookie-cutter definition of what an Acts 29 church is supposed to “look like.” The authors of this book lead, what we in the US would call, a house church movement. But, this book has been re-released in the US by Crossway and Re:Lit, endorsed primarily by Mark Driscoll.

So far, after reading just three chapters, I want to recommend this short book to everyone I know. Buy it, right now.