More Christmas pics ...

A few more Christmas pictures ...

Christmas Party at 'The Place' - coffee shop for international students

Christmas dinner

Christmas dinner

Merry Christmas Pictures

Merry Christmas from Nicosia! We had about 40 at our Christmas lunch on Monday. Less than last year, but it was still nice to be able to provide a meal and fellowship for many who are separated from their families over the holidays. Here are some other pictures ...

Christmas Eve with the boys

Christmas Eve party for international students

Downtown Nicosia

Climbing in the Troodos Mountains the day before Christmas (phone camera - low resolution)

Passion and Compassion

‘If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.’ - Antoine de Saint Exupery

We can't 'manage' the Great Commission. We can't franchise it through the latest ministry fad. Instead we must have a passion for God and a vision for his glory that leads us to guide others in finding and following Christ. It's a vision for a kingdom that comes from outside us, but lies within us. It's a kingdom of light that conquers darkness. It's a vision that sees the glory of Light, but also feels the dispair of darkness. Our lives and ministries are then fueled by a passion for God and compassion for the lost. The best way I've found to cultivate the passion and compassion is to take a few minutes each day to pray, meditate on scripture, and bring my life back under the reign of God. And then I go out to be with my friends, coworkers, and family with spiritual eyes awake to what God is doing and wants to do in their lives. I don't think it needs to be much more complicated than that ...

Worship Diversity

A week ago Sunday we hosted our second 'Africa Worship! Night' at NIC. It was a great night of drums, dancing and praising God in a traditionally African way. Groups from the Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana, and Zimbabwe led a multi-cultural, interdenominational congregation that filled the Anglican Cathedral.


Contrast that with our leadership retreat, which we held two days ago at an Anglican retreat center in the foothills of the Troodos mountain range. The day was led by an Anglican spiritual director who guided 16 NIC leaders through periods of silence, meditation, and Scripture reading. We finished the day with communion and a fellowship dinner.


While NIC leadership was responsible for both events, they couldn't have been more different. One was loud, the other quiet. One was big, the other small. And yet God spoke in both. The diversity has been a great way for us to grow spiritually, and it is one of the things I love about this church. It isn't an easy church to be a part of precisely because worshiping with such diversity requires work, but I think it's important.


In some sense, NIC is a revelation of the mystery Paul wrote of in Ephesians 3:6 -


This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.


This type of unity in diversity is also a powerful witness to the world and an answer to Jesus' prayer found in John 17:23 -


May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.


Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the Africa Worship! Night, but I do have one from the leadership retreat. The countries represented were Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, England, Ghana, Lebanon, the Cameroon, United States, Cyprus, Latvia, and Nigeria.

More on St. George

Most of the eastern icons of St. George depict him with a little guy sitting on the back of the horse. I've asked priests and monks who he is, but no one ever seems to know. But DeAnn Hertzog did some reading and here's what she discovered:

I did some research about the guy sitting behind St. George in Eastern Orthodox icons. I googled him and asked someone. That didn't give me any answers so I got a book from the library. Here's what it said:

"The most intriguing of these additional figures is a young boy whom we sometimes find perched on the crupper on George's charger. He is a specialty of eastern European art from quite on early period. We cannot be at all sure, however, whom this mysterious little figure is meant to represent. He may be George's servant, his 'coffee boy', as Osbert Lancaster calls him, perhaps even Pasicrates himself. But there have been a number of other interpretations. George Every, for example calls him 'a figure of Christ'. He has also been described as 'a young Paphlagonian rescued by St George when he was being carried away into slavery'. There seems to be no knowing. All we can really say is that for Byzantine painters the boy evidently provided an oppurtunity for introducing a lighter touch, almost an element of comic relief, into a subject which was otherwise so highly charged with emotion."

The book is called "Saint George:the saint with three faces" by David Scott Fox.

If you know who Pasicrates is let me know. From what I can find there were a few. It could be refering to the man who wrote down the story of George and claimed to be a contemporary of his, but actually lived much later. I don't know if this is the same Pasicrates who was a martyr from Cyprus.

I don't know who Pasicrates is. Any ideas?

Discipleship and Discipline

The root of the word discipline is disciple. You can’t be a disciple – or make disciples – without discipline. Engaging in spiritual disciplines creates an atmosphere in the heart where the Spirit of God gives birth to the fruit of the Spirit. It is through spiritual disciplines that we become strong in our spirits and learn to live by the Spirit (1 Corinthians 9:27). Spiritual disciplines include systematic Bible study, meditation, scripture memorization, disciplined prayer, fasting, rest, etc.
Sometimes we equate effort with works or the flesh. I’ve been influenced once again by Dallas Willard in this regard, but he says that while we cannot earn grace, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take effort. By taking the time away from our regular ministry activity to practice spiritual disciplines we are demonstrating our faith in God. Spiritual disciplines and intentional discipleship may be the primary way we show that we are ministering by faith in the power of the Spirit because there isn’t always an immediate, tangible result. We wouldn’t take the time to memorize scripture or take a Sabbath rest unless we believed that what God does is more important than all the stuff we are able to do for Him. We want more of God and less of us. But it takes work to stop working in order to let God work! That’s where spiritual disciplines help us.

But just as discipline is essential to our own personal life of discipleship, discipline is also necessary if we are to make disciples. Making disciples doesn’t just happen. We need a plan (a strategy), and then we need to be disciplined to stick to the plan. Being disciplined means not only having a ‘to do’ list, but having a ‘not to do’ list as well. Are there things that you’re going to have to stop doing in order to make time for the discipling God has called you to do?

The energizing of the Holy Spirit, the guidance and teaching of the Scriptures, the will to be obedient, and a plan. These are the ingredients for a disciplined – and fruitful – life. What spiritual disciplines can you practice more deliberately this week?

We put up our Christmas tree this week ...

Thanksgiving Turkey and Christ the King Sunday

For all those who were wondering, yes, the turkey was fine. Actually, the turkey was dead - but it cooked up fine! It even looked like a Thanksgiving turkey! I was quite proud of myself considering I had never even cooked a chicken before.

This past Sunday was Christ the King Sunday according to the church calendar. The lectionary reading was the account of Jesus before Pilate found in John 18. It seemed a bit strange to be preaching from a text associated more with Holy Week, yet Jesus' comments about his kingdom not being of this world made it appropriate. The passage is a visual picture of two kingdoms coming face to face with each other - one kingdom represented by Pilate and the other by Jesus. I think Jesus gives us a clear picture of how we are to respond to evil people and evil systems. What he taught in Matthew 5 he lived in the closing pages of John.

At least twice the people tried to make Jesus their political messiah or king (John 6 and 12). In both cases it says that Jesus withdrew and hid himself. Apparantly he felt that there was a better way to deal with evil than occupying positions of power. I think that's what he calls the Church to as well. The Church - and only the Church - can confront evil the way Jesus did. He stopped the cycle of evil not by punishing it, but by forgiving it. When we punish we put the consequences of someone's sin back on them. When we forgive we let the consequences of their sin rest on us. This is why it is harder to forgive than to punish.

As I pictured Jesus standing silent before Pilate I was reminded of Paul's words in Ephesians 6:13 -

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

That is what Jesus did. He did not conquer ('My kingdom is not of this world') and he did not resist. He stood. And three days later he demonstrated that the way of mercy, grace and forgiveness is the way of victory. In fact, it is the only way that death and all the related evil could finally be destroyed.

Where is the church that is willing to live by the Sermon on the Mount? Where is the church that has the courage to proactively confront the evil of the world by inviting the world to live under the reign of God? Where is the church that, having done all, will stand?

Next Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent. The reading will be taken from Luke 21 where Jesus' speaks about his future return. I find it facinating that the Christian calendar begins not with the first coming of Jesus, but with his second coming! The call is to watch and pray. More about that next week ...

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wrote a post that got lost in cyberspace, but I'm not going to try to recreate it. However, I can still paste the Dallas Willard quote here:

‘I do not know of a denomination or local church in existence that has as its goal to teach its people to do everything Jesus said. I’m not talking about a whim or a wish, but a plan. I ask you sincerely, is this on your agenda?’

I could honestly tell Dr. Willard that those who just completed the Keystone Project have vision statements and specific strategies to do just this!

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in America and so I will be trying to cook a turkey for the first time!

Made it to Ft. Wayne

Arrived in Ft. Wayne Saturday night from Rapid City (via Minneapolis and Detroit). It was great to see my mom, sister, brother and nephew at the airport! Sunday morning spoke in a Sunday School class at First Missionary Church and had a good conversation about persecuation and, of course, discipleship. Then my family all went for Japanese food to celebrate my birthday! Today has been a busy one as I finished shopping for Cyprus and spent the evening with the Hertzog's talking about Cyprus. They should be joining me in Cyprus the beginning of 2007.

Tomorrow will be a slow day of relaxing before I return to Cyprus on Wednesday. Fortunatly, I don't have to preach on Sunday! I can't wait to see my kids ...

Graduation!

Today we celebrated the completion of the Keystone Project - Fall 2006. 23 leaders from Africa, Asia, Europe and North America have completed the training and prepared strategies to facilitate disciple-making movements in their home countries. It's been a great month and the visions that God has birthed in the hearts of these men and women are incredible. Now the fun starts as we go back to places like Uganda, India, the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Egypt, Togo and Texas to start making disciples.

It's hard to say goodbye after spending a whole month living in a multicultural community of men and women passionate about the Great Commission, but we are eager to get back to our families and ministries. I'll be stopping off in Fort Wayne to say hello to family and friends before heading back to Cyprus next Wednesday.

You can see a picture of the team I coached further down on the blog (focusing on England, Cyprus and the Middle East), but here are pictures of all the coaches and me with the president of the Four Square churches of the Ivory Coast and the Bishop of the Methodist Church of Togo.

Thanks for your prayers!

Something's wrong ... Part 3

Here are some interesting quotes from 'The Politics of Jesus,' chapter 8 - Christ and Power, that relate to the whole issue of how the church confronts evil. This is a timely message for the church in an age where we feel increasingly marginalized and powerless to do things about moral evil in the world. I believe Yoder provides us with a positive and powerful alternative to the individualism and quest for power and influence that currently dominates North American Christianity. When Yoder refers to 'Powers' in the following quotes, he means structural powers created to control or influence. These can be political, economic, religious or cultural structures or systems. While the Bible credits God as the creator of these powers (and therefore they are good), they are currently fallen and under the influence of the Evil One.

'The creature and the world are fallen, and in this the powers have their own share. They are no longer active only as mediators of the saving creative purpose of God; now we find them seeking to separate us from the love of God (Romans 8:38). These structures which were supposed to be our servants have become our masters and guardians.'

'To what are we subject? Precisely to those values and structures which are necessary to life and society, but which have claimed the status of idols and have succeeded in making us serve them as if they were of absolute value.'

Quoting Berkhof, 'All resistence and every attack against the gods of this age will be unfruitful, unless the church itself is resistance and attack, unless it demonstrates in its own life and fellowship how believers can live freed from the Powers. We can only preach the manifold wisdom of God to Mammon if our life displays that we are joyfully freed from his clutches. To reject nationalism we must begin by no longer recognizing in our own bosoms any difference between peoples. '

'The church does not attack the powers; this Christ has done. The church concentrates upon not being seduced by them. By existing the church demonstrates that their rebellion has been vanquished.'

And quoting Oldham, 'If our diagnosis is true, the world cannot be set right from the top but only from the bottom upwards.'

'The primary structure through which the gospel works to change other structures is that of the Christian community.'

To sum up Yoder, the Church confronts the powers of the world by standing as a community that refuses to be seduced by them. The cross of Christ stands in judgment of the powers and structures of the world, and the Church - the community of people shaped by the cross - stand as living testimony and witness to the victory and reign of Christ. This is why ultimately the contribution that Christians make is not by being culturally relevant or politically strong. It is by living a life of discipleship - as apprentices of Jesus, allowing Him to create a new community by his grace, Spirit and call to follow Him. Once again, it is practical discipleship that makes the Church a unique and divine institution in the world, and this is why Jesus commands us to go into all the world and make disciples.

Bonfire of the Vanities - for Ted Haggard

Sherman McCoy, the leading character in Tom Wolf’s bestselling novel The Bonfire of the Vanities, is a prisoner of the Wall Street world where he makes millions of dollars as a high profile bonds broker. His ‘lifestyle of the rich and famous’ collides with the life of the sleazy and desperate in the New York City justice system when he accidentally runs over a young, black youth while returning from the airport with his mistress. As the story unfolds, multiple characters find their lives dictated by the larger stories in which they live: journalists sell their souls for a headline, real estate brokers for a sale, attorneys for a fee or favor, and drug dealers for a reduced sentence. For nearly 700 pages we are exposed to the lives of people who are trying to navigate systems that appear out to destroy them, all the while seeking to stimulate (or medicate) their lives by having affairs, making obscene amounts of money, displaying their male machismo or female sensuality, climbing the power structures, or flaunting their fame. It doesn’t seem to matter whether one is at the top of the social circle or low-life street scum. Everyone is a prisoner of their environment. Everyone is hiding who they really are.

McCoy thinks he is losing control of his life as a local tabloid exploits his misery by publishing details of his affairs, his wealth, and his negligence at leaving the scene of an accident in an impoverished neighborhood of the Bronx. Local politicians seem less concerned with justice than they are with placating the racial tensions in order to protect their political ambitions. McCoy himself is desperate to keep his income, his image, and his family in tact. As everything around him collapses, he discovers that he had been a prisoner to all these forces. After a year of navigating the judicial system, reporters questioned McCoy about the contrast between his Park Avenue life and surviving the political and legal nightmare of the Bronx. McCoy responds, ‘I have nothing to do with Wall Street or Park Avenue.’ Ironically, as the world he knew collapsed around him, he found liberation and his true self. The old Sherman McCoy died, and a new one – not a nice, pretty McCoy, but a McCoy who could live with himself – was born. Though he is the one most likely going to jail, he also becomes the one most at peace with his life. At some level, McCoy rose above the controlling narratives of his social obligations, business demands, and the complex political and judicial systems of New York City. He was freed.

In similar fashion, the evangelical church in America is facing a crisis of identity. As we seek to defend our way of life, our cultural values and our influence in society we are finding things fall apart around us. 500 billion dollars has been spent on domestic ministries over the past decade, yet less people are involved in the institutional church than before. Political and religious leaders attempt to rally the troops be scaring us with threats of moral decay, liberal legislation and dying churches. But Jesus said, ‘I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.’ We are commanded to make disciples. He will build the church. I believe that crisis in the western church is that we have the roles reversed. We are trying to build big, strong, relevant churches and hoping that people will somehow get discipled in the process. I suggest that if we focused on planting churches by making disciples rather than planting churches in order to make disciples we might discover once again what it means to live with God and to be the people of God.

Leading with the Word of God ... Part 2

It's a beautiful day in Keystone, South Dakota. Most of the people have gone to the state park to look at buffalo, but I stayed back to get some rest and do some reading. While reviewing 'The Missional Leader: Equipping Your Church to Reach a Changing World' I came across the following quote concerning the type of leadership the author's believe is necessary to navigate our rapidly changing world. Notice the return to the traditional roles of spiritual leadership ...

Beginning with a quote from Stanley Haeurwas (After Christendom?) they write,

'" We are not Christians because of what we believe, but because we have been
called to be disciples of Jesus. To become a disciple is not a matter of a
new or changed self-understanding, but rather to become part of a different
community with a different set of practices ...' Such formation calls for
leaders who themselves have been apprenteiced in the art of formation in the
alternative society of God. These leaders are in short supply within
Protestant North America. Instead, we see a rising demand for the leader as
entrepreneur (to make things happen and drive for success), diagnostician of
health (the church as doctor or therapist), or grower of homogenious gatherings
(forming gated communities in anxious suburban worlds). There is a dearth
of those schooled in the practices of catechesis, confession, hospitality to the
stanger, forgiveness and shaping life as a Eucharistic community.' (page
123)

PS - The picture was taken of a coaching session. Pray for this team as we finish ministry strategies this week for Cyprus, England and the Middle East.

Pictures

For some reason I couldn't post this with the other entry.

This is me with Dr. Dobson. He's the one standing at the podium. :-)

Of course, I had to take the 'tourist' picture as well!

In the last picture you can see that the National Parks Service kindly reminded us that they had nothing to do with this rally!

Something's wrong ... Part 2

Chris and I just walked back from Mt. Rushmore where we had lunch and watched the rally in preparation for the important vote next week. Let me first say that I am very, very pro-life, that I believe marriage is a life-long covenant relationship between a man and a woman, and that I believe that legalized gambling perpetuates poverty. These are three of the issues that are being voted on in South Dakota next week, and the issues of most concern to evangelicals. I also believe that Christians should exercise responsibility in voting on these issues with a goal to protect unborn lives, uphold the biblical concept of marriage, and oppose laws that facilitate the cycle of poverty.

But there were still some troubling things about the rally.

First, it was repeated in various ways and forms that America will lose its privileged status with God if we don't legislate righteousness. It was righteousness for the sake of prosperity rather than righteousness because we follow Jesus.

Second, there was a lot of mingling of nationalism with generic teaching about God. Many Old Testament verses about God's covenant with Israel were repeated in the American context. We were regularly urged to 'conquer the land' (complete with verses from the book of Joshua).

Third, there was a lot of fear-mongering of what would happen if we don't get involved politically.

Of all the speakers, Dr. Dobson was the most responsible. He spoke reasonably, presented the facts, outlined a clear course of action and refrained from linking white, middle class, American culture with the kingdom of God. However, at one point he read through a list of issues facing Americans. When he mentioned being pro-life there was applause. Good. When he mentioned biblical marriage covenants there was applause. Good. When he mentioned support for the American troops in Iraq there was a standing ovation. Huh?

I'm not debating the rightness or wrongness of America's involvement in Iraq (I'll leave that for another day!). But the fact that this issue would generate a standing ovation revealed to me what this is all about. It's a culture war. It's about defending a concept of what the American way of life should be like. And we believe God is on our side. I agree with the moral positions of those who gathered at Mt. Rushmore, but I don't share their motivation.

I'm not afraid of what will happen to America. I'm not afraid losing economic, political or military power. 'Some trust in horses and chariots, but we trust in the Name of the Lord our God.' God's work will continue. He can even use exile (marginalization) and persecution to accomplish his means. I'm not afraid that the church will be destroyed. Jesus promised to build his church and if the gates of hell will not prevail against it, why do we fear the Democrats? These rallies trouble me because the fear tactics weaken faith in God and encourage us to trust in man. They trouble me because linking the success of a particular political agenda with experiencing the continued blessing of God is not only the message of certain Christians, it is the message of Hezballah as well.

If you are voting in South Dakota, vote for life. But do it as a disciple of Jesus and not to 'take back the land' or usher in the kindgom of God. Do what the speakers this morning encouraged you to do, but don't do it for the reasons they gave.

On Fire

They tell you where you need to go
They tell you when to leave
They tell you what you need to know
They tell you who you need to be

But everything inside you
Knows there's more than what you've heard
There's so much more than empty conversations
Filled with empty words

When everything inside me
Looks like everything I hate
You are the hope I have for change
You are the only chance I'll take

And I'm on fire when you're near me
I'm on fire when you speak
I'm on fire burning at these mysteries

I'm standing on the edge of me
I'm standing on the edge of everything I've been
And I'm standing at the edge of me, at the edge of me

- 'On Fire' (Switchfoot)

I will stand my watch
And set myself on the rampart,
And watch to see what [God] will say to me,
And what I will answer when i am corrected.

Then the Lord answered me and said:

'Write the vision
And make it plain on tablets,
That he may run who reads it.
For the vision is yet for an appointed time:
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it:
Because it will surely come. It will not tarry.'

The prophet Habakkuk (2:1-3)

Just some things I've been hearing this morning.

Something's wrong ... Part 1

I feel a bit weird tonight. Last week I had a 'chance' lunch with someone close to the situation with Ted Haggard. The day before the story broke I read this article in Harpers: http://www.harpers.org/SoldiersOfChrist.html . It had been forwarded to me by a friend. Since the story came out this link is plastered on blogs all over cypberspace. Tomorrow is a big political/religious rally at Mt. Rushmore to influence voters concerning the upcoming vote on abortion and same-sex marriage (among other things). Even James Dobson will be there. It's not the sin that's making me feel weird. It's the use of power and trust in power that is uncomfortable. There's something within me that says if Jesus were still walking the earth he would be avoiding Mt. Rushmore tomorrow.

While in a convenience store today the clerk showed me the back page of the local newspaper. A full page add called people to gather at Rushmore to listen to Dobson and show support for pro-life, traditional marriage legislation. Under the faces of the presidents carved in stone was Luke 19:40 - 'I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out.' A quote was given from each president - Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln - about the sanctity of life. Clever, though a gross misuse of Scripture. I'll try to walk up to the rally tomorrow to take some pictures.

As the culture wars get hotter and hotter (and this is really about culture more than faith or morality), I keep thinking back to my time living in the Middle East. Anyone who thinks we can legislate morality needs to visit Saudi Arabia. Sharia' law demands a morality far more strict than the Religious Right, yet even it can't change the human heart. As the title to one bloggers entry reads, 'Haggard, Foley and the GOP Preaching Against the Very Vices They Can't Shake' http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathaniel-frank/haggard-foley-and-gop-pr_b_33179.html There's some truth in the headline. We can't shake sin off. All we can do is ask for forgiveness and continue to take our own discipleship seriously. Maybe it's time to start paying more attention to the heart and less to the ballot box, folks.

Recently I heard someone pray, 'Lord, help us make this world into the place you created it to be.' That sounds a bit Islamic to me as well. It's time to get back to the Great Commission, which means we have to help people follow Jesus and love like Jesus. It means helping people become students of Jesus. We need to get beyond Sunday School classes that have endless cycles of 'How to have a better marriage,' 'How to raise happy kids' and 'How to manage your finances.' Instead of asking how we win the culture/political wars or how we can defend a way of life for our families, we need to start asking how we become disciples of Jesus and how we can help others disciples as well. I need to ask it, and you need to ask it. This needs to be the question that drives us.

For my birthday, my roommate bought me a copy of 'The Politics of Jesus' by John Howard Yoder. Yoder says (and I'm trying to quote from memory), 'We need be a transformed society more than we need to transform society.' Our mission is to be an alternative community - a community of discipleship. Are we?

Anyway, I'm starting to rant now, so I'd better stop ... I'll try to post some pictures tomorrow.

Who is St. George?

Some have asked who St. George is? The legend of St. George exists in many parts of the world. As the story goes, he entered a village in North Africa only to discover that the villagers were in bondage to a dragon. Every year they had to sacrifice a virgin to appease the dragon, but when George showed up he killed the dragon and the entire village converted to Christianity. That's the short version ...

Additions, corrections and generational curses

Ok, once again I have to make sure a post is not taken to an extreme. When I talk about leading with the word of God, I don't mean that management and organizational skills have no place in the church, but leading by the word of God will be helpful in fulfilling kingdom purposes. Just imagine church leadership that diligently studies the Scriptures to understand what it means to be followers of Jesus in this age, and then leads the church based on their findings. Do pastors even have the time for this kind of Bible study? Imagine if top level leadership in the church was true spiritual leadership, where time was spent in Bible study, prayer, teaching, casting a biblical vision for the Great Commission, making disciples and equipping others to make disciples?

Today at Keystone we continued to discuss spiritual warfare. Too often we - at least in the West - neglect the spiritual powers at work around us. We had some teaching on generational curses. During the coaching session afterwords, my roommate Chris made the insightful comment, 'If I don't deal with my issues now I'll pass them on to my kids.'

How true!

Leading With the Word of God

Leading with the word of God is one of the positive things the Keystone participants are learning to do. Due to my seminary studies, I've had to read a lot of books on leadership and organizational development over the past few years. I can't remember a single book that addressed this. It seems that much of Christian leadership development attempts to sanctify conventional management and leadership theory, but doesn't equip church leaders to use the Scriptures in making decisions, determining values and priorities, reaching out to the community or managing conflict. We often trust in organizational theory to help our churches grow rather than cultivating leadership teams that walk in the Spirit and 'correctly handle the word of truth.' This isn't just about biblical preaching, but learning to live individually and as the people of God with the Bible as the primary resource to guide our spiritual and organizational formation.

When planning our programs, are we consulting the word of God? Do our values reflect the biblical mandate to make disciples of all nations? Are we really living according to our values? I've written further about this in the articles that were published in the Missionary Church Today ('The Secular Church') and on the Missionary Church website ('Inerrancy and the Authority of the Scripture'). Both articles can be found in the archives of this blog.

As long as we trust in management or church growth theory for healthy churches we will become increasingly irrelevant from the world we have been called to reach and increasingly disconnected from the God we have been called to serve.

'Send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy hill and to Your tabernacle. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and on the harp I will praise You, O God, my God.' (Psalm 43:3-4)

PS - Keystone is surrounded by beautiful wildlife such as these wild mountain goats.

Freedom of the Press Report

According to an article in the Cyprus Mail, a newly published report by Reporters Without Borders ranks the United States 53rd out of 168 countries in regards to freedom of the press. When the report first began (2002) the US was 17th. The reason cited was that US federal courts are increasingly requiring reporters to reveal their sources. Cyprus currently ranks 30th.

God knows our needs

Genesis 1-3 is one of my favorite parts of Scripture. The whole creation debate tires me, but the revelation of God and human nature that we see in these pages is worth the price of buying a Bible if you don't have one. In 2:18 God says, 'It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.' What struck me was that Adam didn't go complaining to God for what he needed. In fact, it doesn't even say that Adam knew something - or someone - was missing. God had to point that out by bringing to his attention that every bull had a cow, every rooster had a hen (verses 19-20). Then God provided what Adam needed, but he waited until he fell asleep. I've heard stories of men who wake up to discover a strange woman in bed with them having no idea how they got there, but this one is a classic!

Here's the point: God knows what we need even if we don't. Second, He will always give us exactly what we need. Third, He will do it even with no effort on our part. I love the idea of God providing for us while we sleep!

While at Keystone I've been conciously asking God to give me new insight into His word and new revelation for my life and ministry. He's faithfully answered, and I'll keep sharing a few of the things I've 'heard' here.

It's a beautiful morning.

Walking to church ... again

Over lunch or while walking to the Keystone gym I've been having some conversations with the other leaders here about my 'Church with no parking lots' post (see below). Just a couple of clarifications ...

First, I'm not advocating that we all walk to church. It was a hypothetical situation. (I know you knew that, but I'm clarifying it for others! ;-) )

Second, I'm not advocating house churches. I don't think 'house synagogues' were too common.

Our lives are much larger than our geographic neighborhoods, and our social networks more likely consist of people we work with, meet at social functions or chat with on the internet than with the people who live across the street. The point of the comment was to try to imagine what church would be like if we couldn't cater to a consumer or 'bigger is better' mentality. What things would we focus on if our local mission represented a geographic area within walking distance of our house? How would this change the things we do or the way we think about church? How would our values about church be different if we couldn't drive to the church that had the best programs or the most professional Sunday morning worship?

Hope this helps ...

Imagine a church that doesn't need a parking lot

Ancient rabbis limited the amount of walking a Jew could do on the Sabbath by defining a 'Sabbath Day's Journey.' Walking more than this constituted work and a violation of the Jewish law. It is generally believed that this distance was less than a mile. To this day, many Orthodox Jews live within walking distance of their synagogue.

Imagine for a moment that we Gentiles still obeyed this law. Imagine if we all had to walk to church instead of drive. Imagine if the only way we could participate in corporate worship, Bible study, prayer and service was to gather with other Christians in our neighborhood. What would the impact be?

• Less denominationalism.
• Smaller churches but a lot more of them.
• Discipleship and fellowship would probably be a lot more important than property, programs and staff.
• We'd have to get along and solve problems. Finding another church would probably mean moving houses!
• Less recources needed to maintain the organization, more resources available for ministry.
• More easily reproducible.
• More people involved in leadership.
  
  Would this be healthier? Would it be more biblical? Would it be more effective in fulfilling the Great Commission? What are the downsides? You tell me.
  
  90% of the people who attend the Nicosia International Church walk to worship on Sunday morning. We are a neighborhood church in the purest sense of the word. Yet we also come from 28 different nationalities and at least a dozen denominations. If we had cars we'd be tempted to disintegrate into ethnic or denominational churches that we could drive to. That way we could be with people who act and eat like us, who worship with the same style of music and share the same cultural or political values.
  
  At the Keystone Project a small group of Christian leaders from around the world is learning to make discipleship the foundation of our churches and ministries. We are learning to plant churches by making disciples rather than planting churches to make disciples. What the emerging churches that come out of this movement will look like is still unclear. But it is the future. Rather than thinking about new ways of doing church, maybe its time to get back to the ancient way of following Jesus. Make discipleship the priority.
  
  Though 100 or so people identify with NIC, we don't own a building or have a bank account. About half of the money we collect (and we are a poor church of students and refugees) we give away. It's not a perfect church, but it's different. One of the things all of us in the West are learning is that the conventional way of doing church works less and less. In the last decade, over 500 billion dollars were spent by US churches on domestic ministry, and yet the percentage of people attending church has declined. Pumping more money into it is not the answer. Maybe walking to church is.

One Week Down

The first of four weeks at the Keystone Project have been completed. There's lots of info to process, but it is good. Through the course of each lecture I'm taking three sets of notes - notes that amplify the material, questions for those I'm coaching, and observations for my ministry back in Nicosia.

The emphasis of the first week has been on focusing on Jesus' command to make disciples. While there are other important elements to church and ministry, this is the supreme command and needs to be the lens through which we view our lives and activities. The goal in the teaching and coaching sessions have been to help people evaluate whether or not their current activities are resulting in transformed people committed to following Jesus.

While a lot of it may seem basic, it is amazing how easy it is for us to get off focus in our ministries. In tandum with the Project, I've been re-reading Dallas Willard's 'The Divine Conspiracy' and working through a study guide. In the chapter 'The Gospel of Sin Management' he talks about the tendency to reduce our faith to the questions 'How do we get to heaven?' or 'How do we transform society?' The better question, he suggests, is 'What do we need to be or do to become disciples of Jesus?' I would add to that 'What do I need to do to help others become disciples of Jesus?' Those are the questions I'm asking myself, implementing in my ministry in Nicosia and helping the Keystone participants work through.

Pray for those I'm coaching: Nader, Matt, Chris and Wendy.

More pictures ...

Just a few more pictures from the Keystone training. Keep praying!

Made it to Mt. Rushmore

After 24 hours of travel, Wendy, Nader and I finally arrived in Keystone, SD from Cyprus. The next month will be a fruitful time of listening to God for direction in ministry in Cyprus. We represent three different nationalities and three different churches, but we live and minister in one city (Nicosia) and we have one passion: to see people live their lives in God. In all, there are participants from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, India and America.

It hasn't been very long, but I miss my boys and my ministry! Here is a picture with Chris and Marcus taken at a recent cookout.

Healthy Churches

The churches I’m working with in Cyprus face challenges that plague many churches in America. One church is dealing with an ongoing cash flow problem, another is facing a leadership void, and still another struggles to be relevant to the community around it. From a purely organizational standpoint, each of these problems could prove to be fatal to the congregations involved. But are cash, leadership or relevancy the real problems these churches are facing?

In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge writes of organizational tendencies to address fundamental problems with symptomatic solutions. Symptomatic solutions address the manifestations of problems, but don’t address the core problems themselves. Symptomatic solutions tend to focus on solving the current crisis through new programs, strategies, staff or facilities (all of which eventually boil down to needing more money!). In the context of a local church, fundamental solutions generally lie in the area of faith and mission. As I work with the leaders of these churches, my greatest challenge is to help them identify fundamental and not just symptomatic solutions.

The first diagnostic process in helping a church become healthy is to look at its spiritual health. This does not mean rooting out hidden sin, rejuvenating passionate worship, or becoming ‘missional’ – though all those things may eventually happen. Rather, it is about helping a church trust God. We trust God to give us eternal life (salvation), but do we trust Him to lead us (discipleship)? Spiritual health is not primarily a matter of morality, miracles, or mission. It is a matter of faith. Do we trust God with our lives, churches, ministries and community? As Paul wrote to the believers in Galatia, ‘The life which I now live I live by faith in the Son of God.’ (Galatians 2:20) Paul’s agenda for his life and ministry had to die, and the man who was born again was a man who could trust God. We must do more than give lip service to faith in God while really trusting in multi-media, dynamic children’s programs, or charismatic leadership to help our churches grow.

After addressing a church’s relationship with God – a relationship grounded in faith and trust – the second diagnostic process is to look at the church’s mission. The mental model that generally needs changing here is a shift from convincing people to go to church to convincing the church to go to people. I have discovered that this shift is also grounded in faith. When Christians recognize that God is at work in their community and not just in their church it opens their eyes to live and minister with Him wherever they might be – the office, the university, the golf course, the pub. Mission becomes a part of our deepest identity when we believe that ‘the true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world.’ (John 1:9) God is at work everywhere we go! Once again, it is a vision we see with the eyes of faith.

I have a number of friends who are alcoholics. Gin and tonic is a symptomatic solution for them. In the short term, alcohol works to alleviate the pain, anxiety or discomfort they are feeling. But that bad feeling always comes back. Helping them overcome alcoholism means helping them see alcohol as a symptomatic solution and then identify fundamental solutions. It is very difficult for them – as it is for many church leaders – to see beyond the symptomatic solutions to the core spiritual issues. However, a life or ministry of ‘gold, silver and precious stones’ results from honestly facing the fundamental causes of problems.

Basic to these two diagnostic processes is the belief that we serve a God who is more than a gatekeeper at the door of heaven. Rather, He is a God who participates and intervenes in our circumstances, churches and communities. I have discovered that by focusing on the fundamental solutions of faith and mission we reengage with God, and generally the problems that were consuming our energy and resources end up getting solved. This may result in the recreation of a church that looks and acts fundamentally different than it did before, but it is a church full of the life of God, a church passionate about a God-birthed vision for the neighborhood and the world, and a church that is continually growing and changing in Christ.

The people around us

As you’ve no doubt picked up from my previous updates, I live in a complex city. Though if you take a look around, you may see that your community is more complex than you previously thought. Addressing the evangelical flight from cities to suburbs, Ray Bakke describes his personal struggle in urban ministry. ‘The greatest crisis I faced was theological. I didn’t have a theology that addressed the world I was experiencing. My theology was not adequate for the issues I was facing in ministry or in my family.’ (A Theology as Big as the City, page 22) Many churches are struggling to relate to the neighborhoods around them. Some find it easier to leave than change. Personally, my own previously held beliefs have been challenged as I seek to minister in a religiously, culturally and morally pluralistic city.

But while our communities are increasingly fragmented and complex, the past few years I have also been struck by the complexity of the human heart. In my last email I mentioned how contemporary worship choruses reflect the desire of many for healthy relationships. Sitting in coffee shops and pubs, I have many opportunities to listen to the stories of brokenness and shame. Not only do people find it difficult to live with each other, but they can’t even live with themselves. There are few things worse than this.

If you can forgive my endless quoting from popular music (the Bible of postmodern people), how can the church respond to the following songs by the Goo Goo Dolls and Johnny Cash’s remake of a Nine Inch Nails song?

I don’t want the world to see me
‘Cause I don’t think they’d understand
When everything’s made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am
(Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls)

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
You could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
(Hurt sung by Johnny Cash)

What does God want to do in the cultural, ethnic, and theological diversity of a city like Nicosia? What does He want to do in the hearts of men and women feel no sense of guilt and yet live paralyzed by chronic shame? How will the story of Jesus shape the stories of those that I meet? How will their stories shape mine? Where are we going, and what will our hearts look like when we get there? What will our churches look like?

These are just some of the questions that are going through my mind today as I’ve been praying and reflecting on the past week’s conversations.

More to choruses

A few days ago I received an email from a young, European woman who had become a part of our church through the Friday night group that ministers to European college students. Prior to coming to Cyprus about six months ago, she had had only minimal contact with the traditional church in her village. But through our Friday night small group and worship on Sunday mornings, she had begun a personal journey of experiencing God in her own life.

After returning to her home country, she started to attend the church in her village. But in her email she said that she really missed the contemporary choruses that we sing in church. She said that it is hard for her to relate to the hymns.

As I thought about this and her involvement in our church, it dawned on me that it wasn’t necessarily the style of music that made a difference to her. While she was in Cyprus, she often commented that the worship at the Nicosia International Church was so ‘powerful.’ As a typical postmodern European, her primary search was not for ‘truth’ in the sense of correct dogma, but rather she was searching for meaningful and functional relationships with God and others.

Contemporary choruses are often criticized as being ‘shallow.’ Sometimes – and I would agree with this – you can’t tell if a person is singing about God or her boyfriend. And yet for people who are coming to believe that life is just a series of betrayals and fragmented relationships, the search for healthy relationships is more important than the search for objective truth. Into this brokenness and relational dysfunctionality, God comes as the perfect Friend, Lover, and Father.

When postmoderns at NIC sing ‘Today … we’re going all the way’ or ‘Let my heart be Your home’ they are not singing trite choruses that simply appeal to pop culture. Instead, they are celebrating that God has brought meaning into their relationships on both the horizontal and vertical levels. For many postmoderns, these worship choruses are deep and meaningful interaction with the God who is transforming their hearts and making meaningful relationships possible. This may be difficult for those who have been trained to think of their faith in terms of propositional truth statements, but for relationally starving postmoderns, these choruses can be just as ‘powerful’ as some of the great hymns.

I realize that there is more to this discussion than what I’m presenting here, but maybe this will encourage us to be more understanding of those who truly worship through contemporary choruses.

Using the Bible

Understanding, using, and interpreting the Bible is going to be one of the big issues of the emerging church in the coming decades. This is a short piece I wrote as a letter to the editor of 'Missionary Church Today.' The letter was later published on the denominational website.

The topic of the recent edition of Missionary Church Today that dealt with biblical authority and especially the doctrine of inerrancy was of special interest to me. This is a crucial issue for those of us involved in cross-cultural ministry. In the decade I spent doing church planting among Palestinians, I noticed that Muslims have a very rigid and mechanical understanding of written revelation. Over the last five years I have lived with postmodern Europeans – a group much more difficult to reach than Muslims – and I have had to deal with the predominant view that truth is relative. The nature of divine revelation is a topic that must be addressed at both the theological and missiological level. It is good to see the Missionary Church tackling such subjects in its publication.

I share the concern of some of the contributors that students entering into seminary or Christian colleges have a low repository of biblical knowledge. However, the greater concern that I have is that students leaving these institutions are still unable to use the Bible as a tool for the kingdom. They may be able to teach the scriptures, but they often do so in such a way that merely targets the mind rather than transforming the heart. At worst, I have witnessed some with a high view of scripture use it as a tool to manipulate, control, or even wound others. The negative fallout I have seen from this has led me to believe that teaching inerrancy is secondary to teaching future ministers to use God’s word in the ways He intended. I do not believe that holding to a strict doctrine of inerrancy protects from spiritual deadness. Biblical malpractice not only results from teaching false doctrine, but also from neglecting to minister the truth in redemptive ways that respect the humanity of others.

The problem with the doctrine of inerrancy as it is currently taught in fundamentalist circles is that it appeals to the same methods and criteria that the liberals use to reject inerrancy.[i] Both evangelical fundamentalism and Protestant liberalism are often grounded in the worldview of Modernity and Enlightment thinking, at least in regards to biblical authority. Both appeal to human reason in support of their conclusions. The liberals may mockingly ask, “Do you really believe that a big fish swallowed some guy and then spit him out three days later?” The fundamentalists will quote urban legends about people who have been swallowed by fish only to be spit out alive and well (though partially digested!) as support that the story of Jonah is scientifically viable.[ii] Both appeal to rationalism to bolster their position. But rather than trying to defend the scriptures on the shaky grounds of Modernity, I would submit that the scriptures will prove themselves infallible when used as they were intended. So what factors should shape our approach and use of the scriptures? I suggest three.

First, our understanding of the scriptures must be within the context of our spirituality. The Fathers of the Eastern Church rightly emphasize that theologians are made in the prayer closet rather than the study. More in keeping with our own tradition, the Continental Pietists recognized that the ultimate goal of Bible study is spiritual formation.[iii] Unfortunately, few Bible colleges or seminaries offer courses on spirituality, though that is the main business of the church and the purpose of biblical revelation. The Bible must be studied from the heart and minister to the heart, and we must keep in mind that the goal is to cultivate a relationship with God.

Second, the Bible must be studied in the context of community. Most of the Bible was addressed to the people of God as community. Even those few books that were written to individuals quickly became community property. The nature of biblical revelation itself is that it is the record of God’s acts in history among His people. Interacting with the truth, therefore, needs to be a community activity. The tendency of fundamentalists has always been to separate themselves off from others in the effort to remain doctrinally and morally pure, but this puts them in the danger of living with serious biblical blind spots. We must not be like the unwise steward of Matthew 25 whose fear caused him to cut himself off from others and hide his resources. Defensive cultural walls will not protect us from compromise. Rather, it is passionate love for Jesus and his truth that will keep us on the straight and narrow (Psalm 119:165). Pastors, missionaries, and theologians must not only be able to debate issues of biblical importance in a public forum, but they must also be able to sit down with those on the other side of the fence to drink coffee and talk about their children. Do our seminaries teach future leaders how to do this? Do our denominations encourage this? Do we create room for spiritual growth and doctrinal development among our people, or do we foster a defensive or confrontational posture aimed at protecting our particular worldview?

Third, the Bible must always be understood in the context of mission. It is a tool of the Holy Spirit to facilitate God’s redemptive work in the world. The Bible must always be interpreted “on the move” as we seek to engage the world and be the people of God in the world. For example, we must be able to think about theological anthropology in the context of stem cell research and human sexuality. These are not merely academic or political issues, but issues pastors are going to face with real people who find themselves in real messes. Brian MacLaren likens this type of biblical exegesis to riding a bicycle. If you are standing still you will fall over. In order to balance correctly, you must be moving. Occasionally you will lean to the left, and occasionally to the right, but you must always be in motion.[iv] As scripture itself testifies, the purpose of God’s word is to make the man of God complete for every good work. The Bible must be interpreted in the context of promoting “good works” in the real world.

Latin American missiologist Samuel Escobar says that postmoderns will not be convinced of the Christian faith by our apologetics or morality. Rather, it is our spirituality and community that will demonstrate to them the reality of biblical truth.[v] Our focus as Christian leaders must not be merely to defend the Bible against its critics, but to study, believe, and obey the Bible as God’s tool for spiritual, communal, and missional formation. Unfortunately, while graduates of Bible colleges and seminaries have greatly improved their biblical knowledge, many are still not prepared to utilize the Bible for the kingdom purposes for which it was intended.

[i] I am indebted to Leslie Newbigin’s Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (Grand Rapids: Eerdmann’s Publishing Company, 1995) for stimulating my thinking on this.
[ii] “Making History: The Modern Jonah,” Beyond the Broadcast: BBC Radio 4 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/beyond/factsheets/makhist_prog6d.shtml); and Edward B. Davis, “A Whale of a Tale: Fundamentalist Fish Stories,” Perspectives on Science and the Christian Faith 43:224-237 (1991), http://www.asa3.org/asa/PSCF/1991/PSCF12-91Davis.html.ori
[iii] Stanley Grenz, Revisioning Evangelical Theology: A Fresh Agenda for the 21st Century (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), 112.
[iv] Brian MacLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 163.
[v] Samuel Escobar “The Global Scenario at the Turn of the Century,” Global Missiology for the 21st Century: The Iguassa Dialogue, ed. William Taylor (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 2000), 45.

Levi's House - A Metaphor for Postmodern Missions

I Don’t Care

Everyone is so full of s--t
Born and raised by hypocrites
Hearts recycled, but never saved
From the cradle to the grave
We are the kids of war and peace
From Anaheim to the Middle East
We are the stories and disciples
Of the Jesus of suburbia
Land of make believe
And it don’t believe in me
And I don’t care!

Green Day, from the song ‘I Don’t Care’ on the American Idiot album, 2004.

Part 1: Tales of Another Broken Home[1]

To run, to run away to find what to believe
And I leave behind this hurricane of f---ing lies
I lost my faith to this, this town that don’t exist[2]

‘I could never follow Jesus in your church.’

The comment took me by surprise. George, a Top 40 radio DJ in the city where I live, had been on a spiritual search for a few years. After requesting the address of my denomination’s webpage, he had spent some time exploring it. I might have expected him to say that he didn’t agree with the theology, but the admission that he did not think he could be a follower of Jesus as part of my denomination made me curious, so I probed him a bit further.

‘They seem to know exactly what they believe. I didn’t see much room to grow or explore. For me, following Jesus is a process. I’ve already changed a lot, and I know I will change some more. But everything is black and white for them. They also have pretty clear political stands that are different from mine. But I guess the world needs people who are certain about what they believe. I’m just not one of them.’

Though Georgewas trying to be polite, I could hear his postmodern tendencies loud and clear: suspicion of theological certainty,[3] a relational and experiential rather than cognitive approach to spirituality,[4] and – while longing to be a part of a community – feeling alien to institutional religion.[5] The impression he received from the webpage was that this was not a community of people who invited others to join them on a spiritual journey. Rather, it was a group that clearly defines and distinguishes between who is in and who is out, and George was clearly ‘out.’ The sense I got was not that George rejected the my church, but that he believed they would reject him.

A few weeks later I was drinking coffee with Dave, a college student preparing for full-time cross cultural ministry. Since he had grown up in a denominational church I asked if he was planning to serve with their mission agency. ‘I don’t think so,’ he answered. ‘Too controlling.’

I didn’t pursue the conversation further, but I recognized that while George was the type of postmodern European that mission agencies hoped to reach with the gospel and Dave was the type of postmodern American that they hoped to facilitate in mission, neither saw their future in the institutional church for much the same reasons. It dawned on me that the cultures mission agencies needed to cross were not only east and west or north and south, but modern and postmodern. Though not necessarily wrong, the strategies, structures, leadership styles and objectives of most contemporary agencies all reflect the modern worldview in which the organizations were birthed.[6] Such organizations value administration, a technical approach to church growth, and universality in regards to mission management, strategy, and theology. My thesis is that effective mobilization of and witness to westerners influenced by postmodernity requires mission and church leadership to create space for mission as the outgrowth of authentic, Christian community in a postmodern context and not merely the function of an organization.

But I make this proviso: while I suggest a modest attempt to suggest characteristics of mission agencies in a postmodern context, the goal is not merely to replace modern agencies with postmodern ones, but to make disciples of Jesus in a postmodern world. If there is any ‘replacing’ that must be done, it is the replacing of man-made projects with Spirit-born ministries (Galatians 5:16). It is God – not postmodernism – that must lead us into the future. 2 Timothy 2:4 is an appropriate word for those of us who would seek to be ambassadors of reconciliation in the west: ‘No one engaged in warfare entangles himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who enlisted him as a soldier.’

As Green Day laments throughout their album ‘American Idiot,’ modernity is a broken home that leaves us distrustful, fragmented, and cynical. They speak for a world in crisis. Postmodernity is simply the anguished admission that modernity doesn’t work. Into this situation comes Jesus who offers us an alternative way of living that may provide a meaningful metaphor for contemporary mission agencies. The model of mission that Jesus gives us is not one of co-workers in a board room, but friends at a dinner table. It is to this dinner table and the Guest of Honor that we look for cues into the missio Dei – mission of God – and what it means to be a missional church rather than merely a church with a missions program.[7]

‘Now it happened, as He [Jesus] was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.’ Mark 2:15



Part 2: Jesus of Suburbia

Jesus filling out paperwork now
At the facility on East 12th Street
He’s not listening to a word now
He’s in his own world and he’s daydreaming
He’d rather be doing something else now
Like cigarettes and coffee with the underbelly
His life on the line with anxiety now[8]

Green Day paints a portrait of Jesus that is unexpected at best. Some may even call it blasphemous. But as they sing elsewhere, ‘The Jesus of suburbia is a lie.’[9] It isn’t really Jesus that Green Day and all those they speak for are rejecting. In fact, they imply that Jesus himself is frustrated with the bureaucracies, systems, and empty promises of modernity and its religious institutions. They are rejecting the modern worldview that promised – but failed to deliver – meaningful answers to the questions of life through organized religion, science, technology, economics, and politics. But as Middleton and Walsh point out, ‘Modernity is in radical decline. Its legitimating myths are no longer believed with any conviction.’[10] The religious themes throughout the ‘American Idiot’ album reflect their belief that religion merely supports the lies of modernity. Rather than providing an alternate way of living under the reign of God, postmoderns believe that organized (suburban) Christianity has become the High Priest of modernity. Have the values of modernity infiltrated mission organizations and churches, and will these values hinder the Church in reaching and facilitating postmodern people? I will address these questions by looking at three characteristics of modernity – institutionalism, rational empiricism, and universalism, how they are evident within contemporary mission agencies, and the response of postmodern people to them.

Institutionalism

One of the first pillars of modernity is the concept of the ‘autonomous self.’ Modernity has sought ‘a new basis for individual identity as the key to increasing personal freedom.’[11] ‘Humans are independent, self-reliant, self-centering and self-integrating rational subjects.’[12] Modernity rejects tradition, revelation, and group identity as a basis for ordering the life of the individual. Individuals live together by entering into social contracts where choices are made to enter into temporary relationships that fulfill personal self-interests. These social contracts give birth to voluntary institutions that exist to achieve certain goals that will enhance the individual. Under modernity, churches and mission agencies have become such institutions. Because self-interest is the basis of these institutions, they merely exhibit cooperation and not real community. Within this context, postmoderns have come to see institutions and their leaders as self-serving. Concerning his frustration at not being able to find a mission agency to serve with, one college student wrote, ‘I felt like I could not sign up to such an organization that I felt might suck me dry and leave me for dead. It’s difficult but I find it hard to commit to people who I don’t feel are committed to me.’[13]

Rather than reflecting the biblical metaphors used to describe the Church (body, family, etc.), mission agencies have become voluntary associations of ‘anonymous social relations.’[14] This is especially true in the hierarchical nature of leadership characteristic of modern institutions that does not emerge from or function as a part of a missional community.

Institutions are not wrong. Institutionalism is. Structure and organization are a natural and necessary part of community. But in institutionalism they replace community. A mission agency can be a tool to help a community of believers participate in the missio Dei, but as an institution it does not do mission on behalf of the community, and it should not exist apart from a community. Postmodern Christians want to be involved in missions, but they are (rightly) more interested in being a part of a missional community than a missions institution. They don’t want to be used, but they want to participate.

Rational Empericism

Rational empiricists believe that ‘truth exists only as it can be observed and described.’[15] Modern cultures influenced by this type of worldview seek scientific, technological, or logical solutions to problem solving. This approach to life starts with the rational individual rather than the revelation of God,[16] and seeks to establish a ‘rational, objective, predictable, and manageable character of life.’[17] This value of modernity manifests itself in modern mission organizations in many ways from administrative systems to effectively manage missionary personnel to an emphasis on strategic technique. Regarding the impact of rational empiricism on evangelism, Shenk writes, ‘The gospel could be reduced to information that was to be conveyed in what was perceived to be the most efficient way possible. The key problem to be solved was to find the right methods and techniques and to organize a campaign, crusade, or drive. This put a premium on program rather than the formation of a community of disciples.’[18] (Emphasis mine.)

The empirical approach to mission is best seen in the Church Growth Movement. While the Church Growth Movement had much to do with the refocusing of the Church on missions, Gailyn Van Rheenen suggests that a dangerous syncretism has taken place. He writes,

Practitioners succumbed unintentionally to the humanistic suppositions of the Modern Era. Assuming that they could chart their way to success by their ingenuity and creativity, Church Growth practitioners focused on what humans do in missions rather than on what God is doing. (Emphasis in the original.) They saw the missional task as setting goals, developing appropriate methodologies, and evaluating what does or does not work rather than seeking God's will based upon biblical and theological reflection. Their thinking segmented the gospel and practice, the human and divine into two compartmentalized worlds, and practice was developed on the basis of “what works” rather than the will and essence of God. Christian leaders placed more emphasis on developing effective strategy than forming communities shaped in the image of God. (Emphasis mine.) Although they advocated faithfulness to God, the system they proposed was based on human intelligence and ingenuity. [19]

Postmoderns are ready to go beyond merely rethinking church growth strategy. They see the current crisis in theological and spiritual terms, they want to explore once again what it means to be the Church, and they long to reconnect with God in mission.

Universalism

By ‘universalism’ I am not referring to the theological position by that name. Rather, I am referring to the belief in universal, comprehensive and objective systems – whether they are theological systems, strategic initiatives, or management theories. A key facet of postmodern thought is the rejection of universal stories (called metanarratives) that give meaning or legitimacy to reality. At best, postmoderns claim that such universal stories simply do not exist. At worst, they claim that they are totalitarian and repressive. Middleton and Walsh write, ‘To the postmodern mind, metanarratives are mere human constructs, fictive devices through which we impose an order on history and make it subject to us (hence they may be termed “master” narratives).’[20] Epistemologically, this results in a rejection of absolute truth and a belief in pluralism: that there is no official belief system that can serve as the touchstone for all other belief systems.[21] All religions and worldviews share equal legitimacy.

Postmoderns view the world in a markedly different way than their modern predecessors. Newtonian physics have shaped the thinking of modern people ‘to accept hierarchy, certainty, cause-and-effect relationships, either-or thinking, and a universe that works as a machine – in short, mechanistic thinking.’[22] In contrast to this, postmoderns see a world that is ‘composed of energy that is patterned and spontaneous, the certainty of uncertainty, “both/and” thinking, and the connectedness of everything.’[23] Jane Vella submits that this is radically changing the way we view education, and I would argue that similar factors apply to contemporary mission agencies. Modern mission agencies operate on the assumption that they must understand and control all the variables to ensure order and progress.[24] Detailed policy manuals create virtual ‘mission compounds’ where missionaries’ lives are closely regulated and controlled in the interest of stability, equality, and accountability. But an alternative model that recognizes the local and contextual factors is provided by quantum physics. This type of organization recognizes the interrelatedness of the various people, divisions, and ministries within an organization. Nothing develops alone.[25] It encourages ‘both/and’ thinking in the context of dialogue. It is comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity and invites participation in developing localized structures. Such a participatory environment creates energy and momentum – especially among postmoderns – that enable them to be more effective in missions.[26]

Postmodern Christians are suspicious of mission policies or strategies that are applied on a global scale. Leonard Sweet says that ‘postmodern culture is a choice culture.’[27] Kenzo Mabiala states that ‘postmodernity’s ethos wage war on totality and the hegemony of any single perspective, while encouraging and celebrating the regional, the local, the particular.’[28] Postmoderns react negatively to global mission policies and structures not only on the grounds that they are ineffective for ministry, but that they are oppressive, totalitarian, and dehumanizing. Such policies are designed to protect the institution rather than the missionaries and the mission. For postmodern Christians, this is not merely management theory. It is moral leadership.

Mission agencies that rigidly regulate the lives, behavior, and strategies of their missionaries are communicating that they trust the institution more than the missionary. Given the postmodern distrust of institutions, this is not management culture that will reach or facilitate postmoderns. In addition, such agencies are indicating their belief that it is the institution that engages in mission rather than the people.

Part 3: Wake Me Up When September Ends

Summer has come and passed
The innocent can never last
Wake me up when September ends[29]

Douglas John Hall poignantly describes the context the contemporary Church finds itself in: ‘The extremity within which the disciple community in North America finds itself today is not only the end of an age, it is also the end of a long and deeply entrenched form of church.’[30] September has ended, and it is time to wake up. As western culture transitions from modernity to postmodernity, the Church is also transitioning from the center to the margins of society. These changes demand a new way of thinking, but no more so than in the area of leadership. In this final section, I will attempt to describe missional rather than administrative leadership in a denominational mission agency.

Biblical Models for Organizational Leadership in a Postmodern Era

Prophet
‘Missional leadership is shaped by the revelation of Jesus Christ.’[31] The actions of a missional leaders are not shaped by organizational development theory as much as they are shaped by ‘a spirituality that lives in close relationship with and reliance on the directions of the Father through the Spirit.’[32] The prophetic leader brings the organization in line with the missio Dei and points the community toward dependency on God. He or she is able to discern what God is doing and point the community toward practical participation in God’s mission. This is primarily spiritual work.

Apostle
The title apostle refers to ‘one who is sent.’ Apostolic leaders are defined by their mission. More than ever, contemporary mission agencies are in need of leaders who are on a mission themselves. They do evangelism, they engage cultures, they are the tip of the arrow as it is shot into the dark corners of the earth. In the current model, mission agency leaders service and manage the missionaries and the donors. In the missional model, agency ‘leaders themselves must … become noviate[s], embark on a missional apprenticeship, in order to give the kind of direction needed by the emerging missional community.’[33]

Environmentalist
In addition to calling believers to participate in the missio Dei (prophet) and leading the way (apostle), agency leaders must encourage the organization to become a covenant community rather than merely an institution. They cannot create such a community, but they can create an environment where such a community may be birthed by God. Guder suggests three ways a leader may help the people become a covenant community. Rather than focusing on administration, policies, and funding, top level leaders would be cultivating community by introducing spiritual disciplines, educational disciplines, and missional disciplines which they themselves participate in.[34] Administration would exist on the peripheral.

Differences Between Modern and Postmodern Leadership

While the biblical models provide the basis for leadership in a missional community, postmodernity itself demands a style of leadership that is distinct from the leadership in a modern organization. The following chart compares modern forms of leadership with a biblically informed postmodern leadership style.[35]

Modern mission organizations had leaders who …

• Reacted to mistakes of the past.
  Built efficient organizations.
• Managed globally (standardized policies)
• Communicated from the top down.
• Viewed themselves as CEOs.
• Cultivated uniformity.
• Fostered dependency.
  Valued static structures that created stability and management coherence.
• Made decisions according to a hierarchichal process.
  Viewed themselves as guardians.
• Based authority on skill and knowledge.
• Defined people’s roles.
• Appointed leaders.
• Thought of themselves as administrators.
• Set direction for others.

Postmodern mission organizations need leaders who ...

• Anticipate opportunities in the future.
• Develop effective missionaries.
• Think locally (adapt the organization to local contexts)
• Facilitate conversation
• View themselves as prophets and poets
• Cultivate unity
• Encourage interdependency
• Value dynamic, fluid structures that change often and rapidly
• Facilitate decentralized, participatory decision making
• View themselves as guides
• Base authority on character and wisdom
• Give people space to discover their role
• Recognize leaders
• Think of themselves as environmentalists
• Help others discover meaning

Biblical leadership in a postmodern, missional context is people oriented rather than project and policy oriented. As Sarah Hay writes in Postmission, postmodern Christians ‘do not appreciate a directive style and want a manager who is approachable, willing to listen and willing to involve others in their decision making.’[36] In a postmodern mission agency leaders are mentors rather than bosses.

Specific Suggestions for Mission Agency Leaders

Taking seriously the cultural influences of postmodernity and seeking to employ biblical understandings of mission and leadership, let me offer four concrete suggestions that leaders of contemporary mission agencies can make to foster a covenant community that participates in the missio Dei. I recognize that implementing such suggestions would require a major restructing in most organizations, but maybe the time has come.

1. Leadership must be a missional rather than administrative function within the agency.
· In the organizational structure, administrative functions and positions must be made peripheral to the central leadership, which is focused on developing a missional community.
· The primary activity of the missional leaders is to cultivate spiritual, educational, and missional disciplines throughout the mission community.
· Missional leaders help define, communicate, and implement the agencies vision among its constituencies.
· Missional leaders facilitate dialogue between the sending churches, the missionaries, the administrators and managers, and even the target groups.

2. Agencies must be restructured to be fluid (able to change quickly) and led according to vision, values, and principles rather than policies and rules.
· The postmodern world is a world without rules. In such an environment, leaders must lead through principles rather than policies.[37]
· This fluidity may appear to be chaotic and unstable to leaders shaped by modernity, but as Tiplady points out in Postmission, ‘Great leaders drive away from stability into chaos. Regular innovation comes through instability. Any sense of arrival will be dangerous to complacency. Rather than simply seeking one ‘unifying paradigm’ that will help us to organize the future, critically drawing on postmodern thought allows us to embrace multiple ideas about the future.’[38] Such organizations are ‘designed for evolution.’[39] Stability is not found in the policies, structures, activities, or even theology of the organization. Stability is found in the continuity of relationships and simple trust in God; in other words, the community of faith. Moderns ask the question, ‘What is the most efficient way to do this?’ Postmoderns ask, ‘Will you be there for me?’[40]

3. Stimulate dialogue within the community and invite participation in decision making and goal setting.
· Facilitate communication through online threaded discussions regionally and globally.
· Share experiences by encouraging missionaries to research and write on issues they are facing.
· Decision-making should be participatory with deference given to those actively involved in mission (sending churches and missionary personnel).

4. Restructure the organization for local rather than global administration.
· Decentralize.
· Organize regional conferences.
· Assist local teams in developing policies related to finances, lifestyle, recruitment, and strategy while holding them accountable to the broader organizational goals and values.

Conclusion: We’re Coming Home Again

Here they come marching down the street
Like a desperation murmur of a heart beat
Coming back from the edge of town
Underneath their feet, the time has come …[41]

Now we return to the home of Levi – tax collector and marginal Jew. In this setting we see Jesus exemplifying mission and leadership for a postmodern world. For Jesus, ministry often took place in the context of relationships. Rather than a multiple staff, He had friends and disciples. Rather than marketing, there was hospitality. Rather than a program, He shared a meal. He brought the kingdom of God into the homes and workplaces where real life happened.

Second, Jesus demonstrated that leaders themselves must engage the communities around them. As a leader, He entered the home of someone that the religious professionals would have avoided. But not only did he visit tax collectors and sinners, he led his disciples there as well. No doubt the disciples felt uncomfortable as they sat with people that the religious establishment rejected, but they trusted the leadership of their rabbi. They were willing to follow him into dangerous territory. Today we need leaders who think like missionaries and lead their congregations in mission.

Third, Jesus invested His time in making disciples. His concern was never to draw a crowd, but to call people to follow him. We need churches willing to abandon the world’s standards for success by becoming intentional about ministering to those outside religious community and helping them become followers of Jesus.

More important than engaging our culture, we must reengage with the mission of God. Darrel Guder rightly says, “The answer to the crisis of the North American church will not be found at the level of method and problem solving. The real issues in the current crisis of the Christian church are spiritual and theological.”[42] To overcome the effects of modernity and to minister once again from the margins of society, we must become worshiping communities participating in God’s mission.

Like the apostle Paul, we must conduct our ministries in ‘simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God’ (2 Corinthians 1:12). We must not be ashamed to tell the story of Jesus and clearly state its implications for the world in which we live. Finally, as Christian communities and mission agencies we must allow our life together to be formed and regulated by simple obedience to the scriptures and the Spirit of God. It is the people of God living according to the Bible, following the leading of the Spirit, and loving one another in a Christ-centered community. This is our greatest witness.

[1] Section titles are taken from the Green Day album American Idiot (Reprise Records: 2004).
[2] Ibid, ‘Tales of Another Broken Home.’
[3] Postmodernity is not a generational category, but a worldview category. However, it has been said that Generation X is the first truly postmodern generation in that they have been shaped by a postmodern worldview. Beaudoin’s book is a description of the spiritual tendencies of Generation X, but it also reflects a generally postmodern worldview. Concerning religious ambiguity he writes, ‘Offending the canons of religion and psychology, posing as infidels, Xers practice a type of religiousity that experiments with heresies as new forms of faith. Trusting in betrayal as much as in a benevolent God, we erode stringent dichotomies between the orthodox and the heterodox. We search for faith in the midst of profound theological, social, personal, and sexual ambiguities … Experimentation with heresy – even outright blasphemy – is a key part of GenX religiosity.’ Tom Beaudoin, Virtual Faith: The irreverent Spiritual Quest of Generation X (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998), pages 121-122.
[4] ‘Sacramantality and personal experience both imply that Xers feel a sense of freedom and personal responsibility in regard to their spiritual lives. Xers will not simply receive religious truth paternalistically from a religious authority. What counts as religious must meet the ultimate test: Xers’ own personal experience.’ Ibid, 74.
[5] ‘Xers find their more specific marks by deriding the Catholic Church, in particular, and reclaiming Jesus against Christian Churches. Although this theme could be stated more positively as an “embrace of the noninstitutional,” the “deconstruction” of religious institutions precedes the “reconstruction” of religious alternatives.’ Ibid, 52.
[6] ‘modernity: the cultural worldview of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, inherited from the Enlightment and reflective of its values and belief systems. Modernity is epitomized by the belief that through the exercise of reason alone we are capable of attaining knowledge, even knowledge of the divine, and that with such knowledge humans can progress, even to the point of creating a utopian (or ideal) human order.’ Stanley Grenz, Guretzki, and Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers’ Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press: 1999), 79-80.
[7] Darrell Guder, editor. Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 6.
[8] Green Day; ‘East 12th St.’
[9] Ibid, ‘We Are the Waiting.’
[10] Richard Middleton and Brian Walsh. Truth is Stranger Than It Used to Be: Biblical Faith in a Postmodern Age (Downers’ Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1995), 25.
[11] Guder, 23.
[12] Middleton and Walsh, 47.
[13] Richard Tiplady, editor. Postmission: World Mission by a Postmodern Generation (Waynesboro, GA: Paternoster Press, 2002), 15.
[14] Wilbert Shenk. Write the Vision: The Church Renewed (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1995), 63.
[15] Guder, 22.
[16] Craig Van Gelder, editor. The Church Between Gospel and Culture: The Emerging Mission in North America (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 117.
[17] Ibid, 119.
[18] Shenk, 62.
[19] Gailyn Van Rheenen. ‘Contrasting Missional and Church Growth Perspectives’ on http://www.missiology.org/. Copyright 2004.
[20] Middleton and Walsh, 71.
[21] Leslie Newbegin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989), 1.
[22] Jane Vella. Learning to Listen, Learning to Teach: The Power of Dialogue in Educating Adults (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002), 29.
[23] Ibid, 29.
[24] Leonard Hjalmarson. ‘Kingdom Leadership in the Postmodern Era’ at www.christianity.ca.
[25] Vella, 23.
[26] Vella, 30-31.
[27] Leonard Sweet. Postmodern Pilgrims: First Century Passion for the 21st Century World (Nashville: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 2000), 60. Sweet is not referring to a self-oriented focus, but to the postmodern belief that there is always more than one option, always more than one way to do things.
[28] Kenzo Mabiala. ‘Evangelical Faith and (Postmodern) Others,’ on ‘A New Kind of Conversation,’ September 15, 2005.
[29] Green Day, ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends.’
[30] Douglas John Hall. Thinking the Faith, 1989. Quoted in the course lecture notes.
[31] Guder, 185.
[32] Guder, 186.
[33] Guder, 211.
[34] Guder, 208.
[35] The chart consists of my own observations as well as descriptions of postmodern leadership taken from resources mentioned throughout this paper. Though I cannot take credit for all the comparisons, I cannot remember the specific sources that stimulated my thinking.
[36] Tiplady, 97.
[37] See Leadership in A Postmodern World by Henry Schmidt at http://www.mbseminary.edu/main/articles/schmidt1.htm
[38] Tiplady, 84.
[39] Wenger, McDermott, and Snyer. Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002), 51-54.)
[40] Beaudoin, 140.
[41] Green Day, ‘We’re Coming Home Again.’
[42] Darrel Guder, editer, The Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the North American Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) p. 3.