Question
Chris' post about the kingdom of God and the stuff we've been talking about relating to the 12 steps has got me thinking. Why aren't we risking everything to proclaim the gospel that Jesus preached? Chris risked his reputation at the Christian high school he used to teach at...and lost it with a good many parents and staff. But he reaped a harvest of young minds and hearts who were crying out to discover the real Jesus and what he has to say about this life, not just what happens to you when you die.
posted by Mike Bishop at 6:50 AM
16 Comments:
Hey Mike - why aren't you on staff at one of these big Vineyard churches? Why, come to think of it, don't you HAVE one? You know why.
When do you think you'll be invited to speak at one of their pastors' conferences or the like? Boy, you've lost your reputation and bookability haven't you? Yes, you have. So have many of us in some circles. You have sacrificed.
I'm not sure giving up "everything" is necessary. I know what you mean though. Especially when it comes to politics in any circle, we can't bend to people so as not to upset them if we know what we should be saying. Anyway, just wanted to comment. Peace.
right on....
Who is this alan and why is he dissing "big" Vineyard churches? bookability? reputation? what?
Do you seriously think that Mike "gave" that up?
How can you give something up that you never had?
"You know why" - Mike might know...but how about sharing with the rest of blogdom Alan?
You really think anyone can just go out and "have" a big church? If you ever tried to plant one and grow one...you would quickly discover how difficult this is.
Typically I don't respond to anonymous comments, but I think this is worthwhile. Alan was referring to what I've already done or "risked" as I put it in my post. I was on staff with a growing Vineyard church in Gainesville. I'm well acquainted with the challenges associated with trying to grow a church in our culture. Our story - http://www.whatischurch.com/vc/story.htm - fleshes that out in a little more detail. When my wife and I became a Vineyard church planters, we knew our journey would be different than most. Because we were taking the time to ask questions like "What is church?" and "What does it really mean to follow Jesus?" we understood that rapid growth would not be an option. Sadly, church culture (even within the Vineyard) still equates success with numbers, in spite of the biblical and historical evidence. So, churches like ours are typically not going to have much of voice in this church culture (which is perfectly fine by me, by the way).
Getting back the original question I posed on the post itself, I think "risking everything" for the sake of the gospel (the good news that the kingdom of God is present and available through Jesus) is a universal concern. It applies to large churches and small churches, famous people and people no one has heard of. Personally, however, I believe this should cause church culture to question its "growth at all costs" tactics. But that is a bigger conversation than can be had here (plus I've talked about it before).
Mike...I have been part of two mega-church staffs over the years (one a Vineyard and the other a well known evangelical Bible church) Not once..not once...not ever...did I hear anyone - Senior pastor or otherwise brag about numbers or say that "numbers equals success." One church was 7,000 in weekend attendance - the other about 1800.
In my estimation, this is no more than an urban legend that you house church emergents bounce around - nothing more that a convenient strawman you can easily shoot at. Every senior leader of a large church I have ever personally known has been a humble, broken, prayerful follower of Christ who knew full well that they might "water and plant" - but it was God who brought "increase."
(btw...I know the pastor you served with in the Vineyard and am convinced that he has the same kind of heart.)
I've been reading your stuff for a while - blog, etc...and have also checked out the links you provide - to other, like-minded "emergents." The feeling I get from most of you guys is that you are not so much interested in discovering "what it means to really follow Jesus" as much as you are in being critical of established churches in general. Furthermore, following Jesus has never been a mystery at all has it? Isn't it abundantly clear that we are to become "fishers of men."
So my question to you is - how are you "fishing men" - you who criticize those who count people - are you discipling and baptizing? Last time I checked my Bible there was something about giving an account one day when we stand before the King - NOT FOR WHAT OTHERS DID BUT FOR WHAT WE DID WITH OUR GIFT AND TALENTS.
If you appreciate Wimber, many of the things he wrote in the late 80's and early 90's reveal why his influence has been so widespread - THE MAN LOVED THE CHURCH - every expression of it. Hear these words from one of his "Reflections" letters (these were sent to Vineyard pastors in the years prior to his death).
"All separation of the Body of Christ is unbiblical, wether denominational, or nondenominational. We need to be more careful not to think more highly if the Vineyard than we ought...we need to cultivate an attitude that rejoices in the unique contributions of various denonimations." He went on to warn us that calling any church or movement "dead" or irrelevant was a judgmental attitude bordering on sinfulness - playing a role of a sort of Holy Spirit Jr.
Best regards,
I might reveal my identity in the future. Still thinking about it.
Anonymous,
Thanks for your response. I hope you do reveal your identity because I’d love to have further conversation with you so we can better understand each other.
My comment about the modern western church equating numbers (specifically number of people attending a Sunday service) with success is a recognition of what I feel to be a fairly pervasive attitude within evangelicalism as a whole. Obviously, not every large church pastor or member buys into that idea. But it is out there and it causes untold grief to smaller church leaders / planters who are just trying to be faithful to their call. It also, I believe, causes undue stress for pastors and leaders to “perform” to meet the needs of their parishioners and to keep them happy.
I believe we’re in a significant time of transition and “business is usual” just won’t cut it anymore. Specifically, I want to see people giving over every aspect of their lives to the kingdom of God and becoming transformed into the image of Jesus. I personally don’t believe that running church like big business will create an environment where that is possible for future generations of Christians. Are some large churches creating that environment for people? Of course. I’ve never denied that.
Wimber used to say that people “voted with their feet”. Well, scores of Christians in the West are doing just that right now. Sure, some of them are disaffected, critical, and too individualistic. Others, however, are longing for a deeper, richer expression of church that will allow them to integrate their entire life (not just the part they offer on Sundays or when they have time to volunteer) with a community of people who are moving forward into God’s future.
These are the people we have been in community with the past five years, both locally and nationally. None of them are satisfied to just be critical of established churches, although I think it’s important to recognize that criticism (or more accurately critique, not slander or hatred) is a natural and healthy part of transition. All of these people are trying to discover faithful ways to live out the kingdom in community. We are making disciples…it just doesn’t look pretty or very organized yet, and it’s very slow work. If you want to know what the bleeding edge of that discipleship looks like for our local community, I suggest you visit my friend T’s blog - http://www.getting-free.blogspot.com/ - and read what he is writing about using the 12 Steps as a means for following Jesus.
See, this is the problem with blogs, the internet, and the whole “emerging conversation” that I don’t really subscribe to anyway (I also don’t subscribe to much of what is known as the “house church movement” either, although our churches do meet in homes). You can never see what goes on behind the scenes in the lives of these people. When I make any critique about the state of the church, I try to keep it as general and impersonal as possible because of this fact. But generalizations are always imperfect because they never capture the individual stories. So in reality, these critiques (at least from my perspective) are really only good for myself and our community. And by the way, that is the nature of blogging after all. This is our process, our internal struggle with understanding how to follow Jesus in a new world.
"I personally don’t believe that running church like big business will create an environment where that is possible for future generations of Christians."
There you go again. This is another one of these strawman terms you guys love to bounce around. "running the church like a big business" - oooooh - what blatant evil! Of course we all know how universally wicked big business is - this is the ultimate in lemming-like P.C. thinking nowadays: business = evil.
(When was the last time you saw a business or business man positively portrayed in pop media - they are the sum of all evils! Hollywood's favorite bad guy)
Could you kindly define what you mean by this? How do you propose a church should be run without using business principles?
Do you think they are run for profit motives? What? Give me some detail so we can discuss this.
In Kingdom-like Anonymity
Bishop's Grandson
Anonymous,
One of the most influential books on my thinking and practice over the past few years has been "Missional Church", edited by Darrel Guder. Here's a few quotes that might clarify what I mean:
"We must establish clearly the church's nature and ministry before we proceed to design organizational forms to concretize both in a specific cultural context. Unless we do so, we may fall subject to the illusion that managing the organization is equivalent to being the church. This illusion already plagues many denominations and their local congregations." - pg 72
The business of church must be held in tension with truly understanding the unique place each church fits in God's mission to the world and what concrete form makes the most sense to fully join in that mission.
"The needs of the churched and unchurched are not the primary agenda of leadership. The reign of God in Christ, the social reality of the redeemed community, determines the church's direction." - pg. 204
It is a fairly accepted reality that most churches spend somewhere in the neighborhood of 70-80% of their annual budgets on producing a Sunday service and providing the staff and programs to support that endeavor. In our current context, I believe the question needs to be asked, is that the best use of those resources? Maybe the tail is wagging the dog a bit?
Graham Cooke's suggestion was that the vision of the church is not something arrived at by a key leader or group of leaders. The leadership serves the congregation, not in meeting their needs, but in exhorting them to become disciples and search out the mind and heart of God for their own lives and communities. As people discover who they are and God's calling, the sum of those things becomes the church's vision. Maybe things have changed in business theory, but I don't seem to recall hearing or reading anything like that from church business gurus.
Speaking for the Kecks here - We love the Bride ...
and we know you Bishops do too, no pun intended ...
Blessings ...
are we questioning anyone's integrity? i hope not. are we questioning whether folks are following christ and wanting others to do the same? again, hope not. are we saying that everyone, everywhere should be doing church some certain way? nope. are we negating the massive sacrifice and risk folks have undertaken to try to serve Christ in "big" churches? come on....no way! So, what are we questioning and why?
I think we're questioning whether the system of doing and being the church that most people function in is most beneficial for us and the people we want to reach. Is it a reaction to the way it's being done now. Yes. Is that wrong? I don't think so. I'm hoping that criticism can be seen for how it will serve the Kingdom now and in the future. And I'm hoping that criticism will be done in a way that doesn't degrade those who are serving in the current system. That would be wrong. Because our time will probably come when those coming behind find serious faults with the way we do things – or that the way we do things have become outdated.
We don't agree with doing and being the church the way you do. And that's okay. You probably think we're a bunch of whiny windbags who don't know a thing about sacrifice. We're like church leader teenagers who think they know it all. Well, you could be right. We can learn from you. But recognize too that there are many, many folks running in these circles who are like the people you describe – God fearing men and women who have risked a lot. And it's impossible to deny stories of folks who have been enfolded into the story of God through the efforts of these risk-takers.
Do we all want to see folks running headlong to Christ? Do we all want to see folks broken over sin, relationships being healed, and the Church affecting culture for the better? Well, I think we all do. So, let's get back to it. We will probably continue to disagree, I realize that. It's okay. Keep it respectful, raise the questions, and press on.
-A friend.
"The feeling I get from most of you guys is that you are not so much interested in discovering "what it means to really follow Jesus" as much as you are in being critical of established churches in general."
This is pretty generalizing but does point a kind of reformation that is always happening around the church. A lot of us don't have the energy or the heart really to be critical of church so much as we would like to see the Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven in many contexts.
Just another perspective, but my last vocational church position was at a mega-Vineyard church where many of the conversations were about #'s and the celebrity pastor taught that a church is not a church unless it has at least 200 people. Business principles can be smart organizational thinking but are no substitute for the Gospel. Our identity as the Church is rooted in the Scriptures, not business models. They aren't evil, but they aren't our center.
Let's spend our time on what we agree on, proclaiming Kingodm come.
enjoying the conversation.
as a little bit different perspective, i worked at a smallish church (@200)
in a very affluent area (carmel valley,ca) that was HUGELY affected by megachurches. the pastor and pastor-selected elder board(go figure) fretted over numbers. and the board meetings, which i attended as a pastor, consisted of big-business strategies for attracting people to the church. the church went into massive debt, the pastor followed his wife's job to florida and the church shrank. people in that community did not respond to their efforts, but real kingdom stuff (the homeless dinners, various service projects, etc.) grabbed their attention. now i'm not saying that these few examples were what led to it's fizzlin' out but they contributed.
if we can in some way apply blinders to our motives and be true to the spirit of god, taking it one relationship at a time, i'm really not sure if the questions of numbers will then even matter.
as a bit of an aside, the whole emergent conversation has really saved my faith and i have seen little criticism of traditional churches in the conversation but a lot more questions of how we can truly bring god's kingdom to all people and creation, than i ever did in my @17 years of working with the church.
thank you and peace.
I agree with anaonymous' comment that respect (and the mutuality of loving one another) should be the tenor of these sorts of conversations. for myself, i really appreciate a lot on both sides...at least now i do. you see, i was heavily biased against megachurches because i was part of one several years ago and i saw the leadership's subtle exchange the bottomline values of Jesus for the of the corporate business world, which are vastly different. now, that's not to say business = evil...it is to say that business has a foundationally different bottomline than this thing Jesus called His ekklesia. i was confronted with my hurt from the former church and realized my growing prejudice in a recent class with the Vineyard Leadership Institute. Rich Nathan taught on Church Growth, and i have to say i really liked it. i liked that Rich pointed out that he didn't create this monster-sized church (although a small church when compared to some in Africa and Asia), but God did this to him and so in his prayer life he has followed the time-proven Jewish method of the prayer of complaint: you did this to me, how to we fix such-and-such problem? what i really liked was that Rich was sincere enough to be unapologetic for being in a place that God created. i see there are good things about megachurches. i also see the value in critiqueing the large church (as long as it's constructive and done in mutuality) because we learn and grown and fresh expressions of Jesus' ekklesia idea get expressed. as one who has followed the conversation of what is happening down in West Palm with Mike, T and those with them, i think they are a major source of blessing...as in they are being blessed and blessing others. i don't know about Mike's 'bookability and reputation', but because of this blog mike's reputation is even stronger. back to the original question pose by Mike: why aren't we risking everything to proclaim the gospel that Jesus preached? from my perspective i see small but significant movement towards that, but we are still emerging from what Willard said which in effect points to re-designing systems to get better results...anmd that kind of tinkering is exactly what industrial engineer-types are good at....
blessings to you all
steven
Hi guys,
May I jump in...Okay Mike, scores have left the "organized", "traditional", "institutional" church. I agree. I am on of those people.
Would you really be upset if scores of those people would sign up with you "to follow Jesus with all of your hearts."
If 100 micro churches came under your influence, not because you tried, but because God thought you could handle that, would that be okay with you?
If everyone you have been traveling with over the last five years up and left, wouldn't that disappoint you?
You have compassion for the scores that have left, excellent, me too...but what of the hundreds of scores who have never had the chance to hear the gospel preached (per Paul)? I am not advocating the megachurch methods to reach those folks, I don't think it is all that effective, but what are you guys doing for research and development in this area?
You know me a little, through the internet, I am in favor of you guys, but here's my question, do we have to only reach a few to be pure?
Many blessings, :)
Oh, and anonymous, stop lurking and declare yourself, for pete's sake...
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