Below are the rest of my notes from “The Shaping of Things to Come” by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch.  Still in the first chapter, I’ve been blown away by some of the things I’ve been reading.

Something important to note: This chapter deals with the concept of “Christendom,” that is, our cultural understanding of how we gather as believers. This has been called “institutional church” by other authors. The following notes are not focused on individuals, but on the praxis.

This was one of my favorite quotes in the chapter. Extremely challenging.

“If we once have the courage to give up our defense of the old facades which have nothing or very little behind them; if we cease to maintain, in public, the pretense of a universal Christendom; if we stop straining every nerve to get everybody baptized, to get everybody married in church and onto our registers (even when success means only, at bottom, a victory for tradition, custom and ancestry, not for true faith and interior conviction); if, by letting go, we visibly relive Christianity of the burdensome impression that it accepts responsibility for everything that goes on under this Christian topdressing, the impression that Christianity is a sort of Everyman’s Religious Varnish, a folk-religion (at the same level as that of folk-costumes – then we can be free for real missionary adventure and apostolic self-confidence…” – Douglas John Hall, “Metamorphosis: From Christendom to Diaspora”

Michael Frost goes on to explain that Christendom has negatively impacted Christianity. Instead of the Church moving forward, she has been moved into maintenance mode:

[Christendom's] type of leadership can generally be described as priestly, sometimes prophetic to insiders, but almost never to outsiders (no one “out there” is listening), and rarely apostolic. Christendom has moved Christianity into a maintenance mode.

Another quote:

The church is worse off precisely because of Christendom’s failure to evangelize its own context and establish gospel communities that transform the culture.

Another quote:

Christendom is not the biblical mode of the church. It was/is merely one way in which the church has conceived of itself. In enshrining it as the sole form of the church, we have made it into an idol that has captivated our imaginations and enslaved us to a historical-cultural expression of the church.

We have not answered the challenges of our time precisely because we refuse to let go of the idol. This must change! The answer to the problem of mission in the West requires something far more radical than reworking a dated and untenable model. It will require that we adopt something that looks far more like the early church in terms of its conception of the church (ecclesiology) and its core task in the world (missiology)

Main point of  the book:

The whole tenor of this book will be to call post-Christendom to see itself again as a missionary movement rather than as an institution.

I appreciated the approach towards discovering ecclesiology.  It is rooted in an understanding of Jesus and mission:

Christology determines missiology, and missiology determines ecclesiology. It is absolutely vital that the church gets the order right.

After a long hiatus away from contributing to RawReligion.com, I’m making a conscious decision to return to this blog. I use the word “conscious” because it’s a key necessity when talking about decentralized Christianity.

When you set out to pursue organic, simple, outwardly-focused models of “doing church” (i.e. ecclesiology) you find that it is your own responsibility to set the pace and sustain momentum. To respectfully paint a picture of this, you’re leaving the well-oiled machine of the traditional church, where procedure and sub-cultural expectations are defined and observed, and launching out into the great unknown where format is fluid and the modus operandi is undefined. You’ve set out on an pioneer adventure, there are no roads, and only you can “blaze the trail” westward towards the unknown.

This week, I’m traveling to New Hampshire to install a phone system (It’s my day job). I brought two books for reading, (1) Vol. 1 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers and (2) “The Shaping of Things to Come” by Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch (n.b. hereafter referred to as “SOTTC”). The Ante-Nicene Fathers are good, but heady; the SOTTC is earthy, practical, and deeply prophetic. Not camel-skin-suit prophetic, nor expensive-suit-and-white-feathery-hair prophetic. The words of this book are a timely and much-needed wake-up call for believers to deeply consider the way we operate in our cultural context.

What follows are a few quotes and my own commentary on chapter one, “Evolution or Revolution?”:

D.H. Lawrence said as long ago as 1924, “The adventure has gone out of the Christian venture.”

I think most of us can relate to this feeling. Where is the excitement? Where is the lasting sense of adventure? We are overfed, overeducated, and jaded to the excitement of innate within the wild Mission of God. Hence, the reason for revolution.

[We must ask ourselves] “What has God called us to be and do in our current cultural context?” The issue of cultural context is essential because the missional church shapes itself to fit that context in order to transform it for the sake of the kingdom of God. By definition, the missional church is always outward looking, always changing (as culture continues to change), and always faithful to the Word of God.

Heeding the cultural context is important for two reasons. One, it implies that we as the people of God are looking outward, outside the physical or societal walls of our group. Two, it recognizes that the expression of Jesus’ Bride will be different depending on the cultural context it is within. Missional church can (and should) look different across cities, countries, and people groups.

Albert Einstein, one of history’s greatest thinkers, once noted that “the kind of thinking that will solve the world’s problems will be of a different order to the kind of thinking that created those problems in the first place.” … If Einstein was right, then the problems of the church, like all real problems in any context, cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created those problems in the first instance. In other words, boxlike thinking simply cannot solve the problems of the box.

Mr. Einstein, there was a deposit of the wisdom of God in you. However, the record still stands that King Solomon was (and is) the wiset man who ever lived.

A metanarrative is an overarching story that claims to contain truth applicable to all people at all times in all cultures.

A definition like this forces us to ask ourselves what the gospel REALLY is. How much of what we preach as doctrine is rooted in our own cultural norms? Can we be focused (and brave enough) to challenge the sacred cows in our ecclesiological praxis to whittle things down to the essential gospel of God, that spans culture?

Table 1: Depicting Three Phases of the Church and its Characteristics

Many of the items are the same between the “Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Mode” and the “Missional Mode.” This is not illustrated in an attempt to prove that the missional mode has it “all correct,” but rather that the missional mode seeks to restore some of the timeless principles that were in operation in the early church age.

Christendom thinking…assumes that the church belongs prominently on the main street, and it claims that the church has the right to take over a public space and clean out the local people while creating a so-called sanctified religious zone.

What do you think about this (above) statement?

The missional church always thinks of the long haul rather than the quick fix.

As believers, we must be after lasting change. It takes a summer to grow a zucchini, but generations to establish an oak tree. What is our goal? Are we willing to invest time and resources without the reward of instant gratification?

Below are fifteen hallmarks of a missional church. I won’t comment on them in this post. I believe they can stand on their own and challenge our current understanding of “church.”

1. The missional church proclaims the gospel.
2. The missional church is a community where all members are involved in learning to become disciples of Jesus.
3. The Bible is normative in this church’s life.
4. The church understands itself as different from the world because of its participation in the life, death, and resurrection of its Lord.
5. The church seeks to discern God’ specific missional vocation for the entire community and for all of its members.
6. A missional community is indicated by how Christians behave toward one another.
7. It is a community that practices reconciliation.
8. People within the community hold themselves accountable to one another in love.
9. The church practices hospitality.
10. Worship is the central act by which the community celebrates with job and thanksgiving both God’s presence and God’s promised future.
11. This community has a vital public witness.
12. There is a recognition that the church itself is an incomplete expression of the reign of God…
13. The missional church is incarnational, not attractional, in its ecclesiology…
14. The missional church is messianic, not dualistic, in its spirituality. That is, it adopts the worldview of Jesus the Messiah, rather than that of the Greco-Roman empire. Instead of seeing the world as divided between the sacred (religious) and profane (nonreligious), like Christ it sees the world and God’s place in it as more holistic and integrated.
15. The missional church adopts an apostolic, rather than a hierarchical, mode of leadership. By apostolic we mean a mode of leadership that recognizes the fivefold model detailed by Paul in Ephesians 6. It abandons the triangular hierarchies of the traditional church and embraces a biblical, flat-leadership community that unleashes the gifts of evangelism, apostleship, and prophecy, as well as the currently popular pastoral and teaching gifts.

I’ve been meditating on Colossians 1:13 for the last few days.  “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves.” There is a radical shift that takes place when we align our allegiance with Yahweh and enter His kingdom.  We are baptized into a new way of life.  We begin to see reality through a different worldview.

Even our spiritual genetics change.  We are a new creation and, thus, find that our desires are drawn in different directions than what we were familiar with.  This spiritual DNA is in the makeup of every believer, from the stay-at-home mom to town’s local pastor/priest.  It is the one common denominator that we share as sons of the Living God.

Within these strands of DNA are certain hardcoded characteristics: What we desire, love for fellowship, and (I believe) how we relate to others within the Body.  While the application of these foundational constants may vary based on geography, culture, political climate, etc, there should always be an underlying similarity shared between authentic expressions of Christian ecclesiology.

I trust it’s safe to say that you and I are both homo sapiens.  We share common DNA.  As such, you and I both have an organ on our face called a nose.  We both have a set of ears.  We eat have an opening at the front of our face into which we place various forms of food.  If we eat something with beans we both get gas (maybe?).  Though we are two distinct individuals, there is are expressions of our humanity that are common.  Indeed, these expressions are a witness to the world that we are human beings.

I believe that ecclesiology works the same way.  There can be many authentic expressions of “church” so long as each type holds fast to the foundational building blocks of who we are as a people of God.  These building blocks are determined by the characteristics of our Father, Yahweh.

When I received this revelation, I began to be much less concerned about the outward structure or label applied to a Christian meeting and more concerned with whether the gathering I was a part of modeled the genetic characteristics of my Father.

“On earth as it is in the heavens…”  I think the Father is looking for His people to model community in such a way that reflects the community that exists in the Godhead.  Whether we classify ourselves as “traditionalists,” “house churchists,” or “simple churchists,” the important issue we need to address is this: Does the way I relate to other believers in this fellowship reflect the type of relational community modeled in the Godhead? If not, (a) why do we persist in that practice and (b) how can we change to more closely mimic relational interactions in the Trinity?

I plan to explore this idea in a series of blog postings over the next few weeks.  However, I’d be interested to see others weigh in on what they believe the “common DNA” is that we share as fellow believers and whether it is supported by their present ecclesiology.

By Traver  Dougherty
Published: June 16th, 2009
Source: cmaresources.com

When it comes to organic church life, one of the questions I constantly get is, “What are we supposed to do when we gather?” Although I think that’s a good question, one that 1 Corinthians 14 addresses nicely, I don’t think it’s nearly as good of a question as “How are we supposed to be when we come together?”

All too often, in this consumer culture of ours, we look to get something out of a gathering. To this end, we ask ourselves as we seek to maximize our seemingly-valuable time, “What’s the take away value?” Although this particular mode of thinking is very American, it’s not very Christian.

Here’s the better question: “What added value do I bring to the gathering?”

Well, whatever your answer to that question, we’d all be wise to keep one ‘value-added’ at the top of the list: love.

According to the New Testament, people in the church need to:

• Love one another (Jn 13:34)
• Be devoted to one another and give preference to one another (Rm 12:10)
• Be of the same mind with one another (Rm 15:17)
• Accept one another (Rm 15:17)
• Wait for one another before eating (1 Cor 11:33)
• Care for one another (1 Cor 12:25)
• Greet one another with a holy kiss (2 Cor 13:12)
• Bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2)
• Tolerate one another (Eph 4:2)
• Be kind to one another and forgive each other (Eph 4:32)
• Speak to one another is psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs (Eph 5:19)
• Submit to one another (Eph 5:21)
• Regard one another as more important than oneself (Phil 2:33)
• Share God’s message and admonish one another (Col 3:16)
• Comfort one another (1 Thess 4:18)
• Encourage and build up one another (1 Thess 5:11)
• Live in peace with one another (1 Thess 5:13)
• Confess sins to one another and pray for one another (Jms 5:16)
• Be hospitable to one another (1 Pet  4:9)
• Serve one another (1 Pet 4:10)
• Fellowship with one another (1 Jn 1:7)
• And yes, gather together (Heb 10:25), but not in the form of a worship service but rather in such a way that we can challenge one another to love and good deeds (v24).

In other words, to live out together all the other mandates given above (from Organic Leadership 2009:65, 66).

One of the things I’ve really admired about those in my community of faith is their absolute commitment to all the ‘one anothers’ listed above, including the tougher ones like “tolerate one another.”

In my past church experiences, when the going got tough, the so-called tough got going…to the church down the street. Those in my community, however, won’t have it. Call it maturity. Call it the Spirit. Call it stubborn love. I call it peculiar. Although they’ve all had plenty of reason, humanly speaking, to check out and move on, these people stick because of their undying commitment to the ‘one anothers’.

Why do they stay? And why do they keep in constant contact with one another (phone, facebook, and email)? I think I know the answer. We’re family. And leaving is not an option. Yes, we’ll leave to multiply churches because that’s what people on a mission do, but we won’t leave one another for selfish reasons because leaving isn’t loving. Come to think of it, the whole thing is quite Godlike. “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb 13:5).

When I was growing up my mom and dad often reminded me (still do) that we Christians are to be “a peculiar people” (1 Pet 2:9): as in don’t fit in, different than the world. And frankly, because Mom and Dad drilled the peculiar thing into my head, all my life I’ve been looking for a group of people to be peculiar with. Praise the Lord! It’s happened!

Our Lord has called us to be a peculiar people, has he not? And as a demonstration of this peculiar-ness, God has given us a laundry list of ‘one anothers’ that, if practiced, bring about a clear division (in a good way) between the body of Christ and the rest of the world. This, by the way, is our testimony. “By this,” said Jesus, “all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (Jn 13:35).

Editor’s Note:  Wow!  That’s all I can say to this post.  Neil Cole presents a compelling argument for supporting prayer warriors.  What I appreciate about this post is the emphasis on the elderly and their rightful/important/needed place within the Body of Christ.  Somehow, this seems to resonate within my spirit.  Though I am a supporter of the 24/7 house of prayer model, defining the elderly for this position seems more appropriate and fitting in my understanding of Scripture.

Source: Cole-Slaw by Neil Cole

The second role defined in the New Testament as needing full time support is what Paul calls the “widow indeed” in 1 Timothy 5:3-16 (NASB). Paul delineates clearly what the qualifications are for this role and what the job description is. She is to be at least 60 years old, have no family to support her and to have been faithful in serving the Lord and His people. It appears as though she is to actually make a pledge to serve the Lord and not to be remarried, and for this reason younger women are exempt from this role. Her sole job description is to continually pray, night and day.

This is not just a case of charity. With God’s plan, not only is a woman without means granted stable provision, but perhaps even better, the church is blessed with constant prayer bombarding the throne of God! This has got to be a powerful partnership. Not only is this woman given financial support, but she is also granted a meaningful purpose for her remaining days. She is given a privilege of great significance rather than brushed aside.

Wow. I wonder what our churches would be like if we had apostles starting churches all the time in new areas and among new peoples, and the churches were supported by full-time prayer warriors—night and day! I can’t think of a better investment in kingdom resources. Church would actually be investing in spiritual endeavors of kingdom expansion and we would be investing in spiritual battle with full-time prayers and intercession.

In this cast-aside society where people are routinely brushed off as not valuable because of a lack of vocation or a handicap of sorts, this principle could make a huge difference. In God’s economy there are no useless Christians who are welfare cases. An elderly, arthritic woman who can barely rise to answer the door, is an extremely valued servant who is needed to breakdown walls of separation, destroy spiritual strongholds and set captives free! She has a calling on her life and is supported full time to serve in this way. I can see why Satan would want for us to get away from such a function. He’d much rather we pay a full-time staff person to keep our youth entertained and focused while the adults have fellowship and teaching. Could it be that the enemy is more threatened by this old woman than the highly educated professional pastor! Ouch.

Paul makes one thing clear in this passage that he also made a point of in 1 Cor. 9—the role is not to be a burden to the church if it can be helped (v. 16). We’ve grown accustomed to seeing the church as a burden to the pastor, but Paul saw things the other way around. I think our concerns are often misplaced because our values are far removed from the New Testament. I wonder how our churches would be if we were more concerned for the stress placed on the church than on getting as much from her as we can?

Editor’s Notes: I think this issue is especially pertinent to Western Christianity.  According to recent statistics from the Barna group, annual giving to faith-based organizations is expected to drop significantly in the next few years.  While some may attribute this solely to the economy, I think there’s a larger issue underneath — perhaps I will develop this in a later post.  Take some time to read through Neil’s thoughts and post your comments.  Who has the right to receive financial support from the Body?

Source: Cole-Slaw by Neil Cole

In 1 Corinthians 9 Paul makes a case for his right to make his living from the gospel just as the other apostles do. He even cites the Lord as the source of the directive (v. 14) perhaps a reference to his commissioning of the twelve and the seventy to take no purse with them for a laborer is worthy of his wages (Matt. 10:9-10; Luke 10:4).

Paul and Barnabas, however, forgo their right for such payment and choose rather to work to support themselves. Paul worked as a tentmaker while starting the church in Corinth at least until others arrived to help in the support so as not to be a burden to the emerging church.

Apostolos, the Greek word translated “apostle” means one sent on a mission as a representative or a special envoy. They are the ones to lay a foundation for the expanding church in every region and among every tribe and nation.

Such a role is not limited to a single church in a given region, but is commissioned to church an entire region. They are not likely to manage an existing church, but lay the foundation for others to build upon…and then are likely to go do it again somewhere else.

This role is actually defined as having a “right” to make a living from the preaching of the good news (vv. 3-9). It is important to note, however, that this right can be laid aside and surrendered for the sake of the church as Paul and Barnabas chose to do. This right should never be demanded at the detriment of the church. Have we hurt the church by making her responsible to employ her leaders like a business? I believe the answer to this question is yes, in many ways. Besides draining her of resources, perhaps the worst detriment is how we have segregated the body into a professional class that does the ministry and a nonprofessional class that works hard to pay them.

Source: Cole-Slaw by Neil Cole

This is a very critical question for the church to ask today. In order to approach this subject with cooler heads and calmer hearts, may I suggest we commit ourselves to addressing this from the New Testament rather than from our traditions, practical challenges and emotional bias. Can we read the New Testament as if we never read it before? Can we consider this question as if we did not have 2000 years of history weighing in on our perspective? Can we ask this question divorced from the concern of where our next paycheck will come from or worrying about career choices and educational investments? Probably not, but we should at least try.

It is my personal belief that much of our theology of church financing is dictated by two things. We are heavily influenced by the Old Testament principles of supporting a centralized religious government, and by our own need to support a new centralized religious institution. Frankly, I believe we draw much from the Old Testament for the very reason that we need to support a centralized religious institution and the New Testament is found lacking in that regard. Not that the New Testament is lacking in content about finances, in fact principles of financial stewardship is voluminous in the New Testament. Jesus spoke more about money than about heaven and hell, but the New Testament does away with the centralized religious institution. All of us are priests. All are servants empowered by the anointing of the Holy Spirit for the work of the ministry.

As I have studied the New Testament with this question in mind I have discovered that there are only two roles that are expected to make their living being supported by the church. If we could only pay two roles in the church today, which would we choose? Senior pastors and missionaries? Pastors and worship leaders? Denominational executives and pastors? Push comes to shove, I’d probably want to include a gifted secretary in the mix, but that’s more reflective of my own weakness than of any understanding of the Bible. I am confident that whatever two roles we would choose, they would not be the two mentioned in the New Testament.

In the next few blog posts I will examine this issue and share who is supported “full time” in the NT.

RawReligion.com Editor Comment: What is your take on this subject? What roles do you think should be supported by the Body of Christ?