I was listening to a podcast on Issues Etc. earlier this week and I was struck by a profound thought. The title of the podcast was “The Vocation of Minister.” I’d normally link directly to it but the site appears to be down as I’m writing this, nothing will load.

The guest speaker was talking about how the word minister means “servant,” but most churches today prefer to look to ministers as leaders or CEO’s, and ministers are all too happy to accept this role. The proper role of a minister is that of a servant, and his chief task is to “administer” what God has given, His gifts.

The guest speaker then said this:

“We approach [the vocation of the minister] as a social issue, we look at what the people want. Let’s look at the word ministry. There’s an old saying… ‘The customer is always right.’ The customer knows what he wants and if you’re going to serve the customer, you better give him what he wants or you’re not going to do business with him. That’s precisely wrong when it comes to the church, because the customer is always wrong. And God is always right.

In other words, we must approach the vocation of the minister theologically (not socially). A minister of God must often preach God’s Law and His Gospel to people who don’t want any part of it. Often people don’t realize the depth of their sinfulness (including me), and they must hear God’s Law. Other times the Law has done its work and people have been cut to the heart, then they need to hear the Gospel. The customer (not a good term but I’m using it simply to make a point) is always wrong. He doesn’t want what he really needs. I am so often guilty of this. I often want authenticity, community, and whatever – but what I really need is the forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. These other things are secondary to this primary need.

It is too easy to lose sight of Christ as the focal point of our churches when we operate with the assumption that the folks in the pews are right. That’s how we get mega-churches that acquiesce to, rather than transform, culture. Give the people what they want and you will grow numerically, but that’s not how ministry progress ought to be measured.

I got a bunch of iTunes gifts cards for Christmas, and I have found a couple albums I am currently enjoying, but for the most part, a lot of Christian music sucks. Almost every worship song is playing the same 1-6-5-4 chord progression in the key of E, and most Christian sub-genres look and sound the exact same as their secular counterparts. I thought Christians were to be “in the world, but not of the world.” Is the Christian music industry an exception? Where are the creative artists?

I’ll be reserving my iTunes gift cards until I get some good recommendations. For now, these are some Christian artists I have been enjoying:

• Derek Webb
• Shane & Shane
• Indelible Grace Music
• Caedmon’s Call
• Scott Phillips

What artists have you been enjoying? Any recommendations for artists that glorify God and don’t try to look and sound like the status quo?

In John 14:6, Jesus says “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” But how often we leave Christ out of the picture. Or we introduce a false Christ who simply wants to better society and love people. We forget that He had to die for us, and that we must also die in order to become a part of His family. All sinners must die, for the wages of sin is death. They can either die eternally, or they can die baptismally. I saw this picture at Veith’s blog and thought it exemplified Jesus’ words in John 14:6 pretty well:

Is this picture accurate? Could it be improved? What thoughts does it elicit?

Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood, and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

Recently I wrote about institutional vs. organic church planting and addressed how institutions have failed to create disciples who make other disciples, the only true measure of progress in ministry. Allow me to take the discussion a step further.

Church organizations have a plethora of programs, activities, classes, seminars and more designed to “disciple” their congregation. Yet they repeatedly fail to grow true disciples of Jesus Christ. Perhaps more programs won’t fix the problem, nor will more money or better facilities. We need people who are willing to invest time into other people’s lives. Not just one night a week at a scheduled small group session, but someone who will continually walk beside others. Someone whom you can call at 2AM when you are struggling with temptation, someone who will come over to comfort you after you just found our your friend died, someone who isn’t trying to domesticate you, but simply wants to love and accept you as you are. There aren’t too many of those folks floating around in churches these days, despite the fact that this is how the entire movement has grown (and continues to grow in other countries).

I recently read that only 4% of missionaries go to unreached people groups. In other words, organized churches send all their people to places that are already evangelized. In America, we do the same thing, we plant churches in nice suburbs, places where there is plenty of money. It’s sickening.

Hmm, maybe if we teach people how to be in relationship with Christ and others instead of giving them more programs, things could improve. Maybe if we invested time into messy lives and showed them organic unconditional love, not organizational church love that says, “fit into this mold as soon as possible or we’ll give up on you (you don’t want to ‘help yourself’), and we’ll talk about you behind your back in that God-sanctioned gossip line we call a “prayer chain.”

Hmm…. Maybe if we show people Christ, they would long for Him….

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood, and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”

I saw this quote at Between Two Worlds, who got it from Tony Payne. It speaks volumes to churches that rely on the same marketing tactics and progress reports that are being utilized by corporate culture, rather than biblical measures as defined in this quote:

The measure of how ministry is progressing in your church or fellowship, and the way to evaluate whether you are making progress, is not attendance on Sunday, signed up members, people in small groups, or the size of our budget (as important and valuable as all these things are!). The real test is how successfully you are making disciples who make other disciples. Are we seeing people converted from being dead in their transgressions to being alive in Christ? And once converted, are we seeing them followed-up and established as mature disciples of Jesus? And as they become established, are we training them in knowledge, godliness and skills so that they will in turn make disciples of others?

This is the Great Commission—the making of disciples who obey all that Christ has taught, including the command to make disciples. And this is the touchstone of our faithfulness to Christ’s mission in the world, and the sign of a healthy church: whether or not it is making genuine disciple-making disciples of Jesus Christ.

How is your ministry measuring up? Is it making biblical progress? Is it adding participants or more benchwarmers?

What did early disciples devote themselves to? The answer:

1. The apostles’ teaching
2. The fellowship (other believers, koinonia does NOT mean attending church services!
3. The breaking of bread (the Lord’s Supper)
4. Prayer

True fellowship (koinonia) involves authentic relationships, which result best outside of institutions. The apostles spent a lot of intimate time with disciples, not just once or twice a week preaching at them from a pulpit. That’s why they usually only had a handful of dedicated disciples. Too many pastors try to take on the responsibility of discipling an entire congregation, and then they end up not having any time to disciple even one person effectively. Case in point, call your pastor and find out if you can hang out regularly, see what kind of time he has for you. Chances are, not very much. Jesus WALKED with His disciples, you’d be hard pressed to find a pastor with time to do this. Obviously, modern pastors are not the solution.

The solution is one person starting with a small group of people and spending intimate time with them, ideally coworkers (hence Paul’s tentmaking). Discipleship is a lengthy process, and it takes an enormous amount of time and energy. Jesus’ disciples continually screwed up and even denied Him when the crap hit the fan! People are messy, we tend to give up on them if they don’t fall in line after a three-point sermon or pep-talk. Is anyone willing to invest time into someone else these days? Is it even a priority for the church? Maybe that’s why there are few mature disciples out there.

And don’t even get me started on prayer. Do most churches and pastors even do that regularly any more?

Am I just being a whiner? Or is my frustration justified? What do you think?

I went to an excellent Scott Phillips concert Saturday night at a local church. Scott is traveling throughout the country partnered with WorldVision, reminding the Church that She is an organism – not an organization – and showing the world the hope, freedom and love that can only be found in authentic Christ-centered community. To get a feel for his sound, combine the acoustic complexity of Shawn McDonald and Shane & Shane with the authentic, witty lyrics and storytelling experience of Derek Webb, but in a new and refreshingly unique way. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying his albums since the concert, particularly the organic heartfelt sound of his album “Love and the Like”. But the song that really struck me during the concert, which is incidentally the topic of this post, comes from his new album “Next Stop Willoughby”. Here are the lyrics to A Nursery Rhyme by Scott Phillips:

There is a man in me who is already free
And I’m just waiting
For him and I to meet; he’s who I’m meant to be
But I’m still waiting

And somewhere underneath, beyond what I can see
A heart is beating
A heart as pure and clean as newborn babies’ dreams
I feel it leading

And all because…
Chorus:
Mary had a little Lamb – his fleece was stained with blood
And everyone who killed the man
Was the target of his love
Oh-oh, oh-oh

Its enough to know that I’m a son in the battles yet to overcome
Its grace transcending
Because the war is already won, you know the bleeding and the dying’s done
Oh brother, what a happy ending

And all because…
(Chorus)

Bridge:
Every crime in my history, every crime that is yet to be
Disappeared when I first believed, whoa oh oh oh
So when the sun shines down on me, when the dark overshadows me,
Everywhere I’ve yet to be, the Lamb is sure to go
The Lamb is sure to go

That chorus blew me away when I first heard it, not only on account of Phillips’ lyrical genius, but also because of the profound truth that we have become new creatures in Jesus Christ, He has given us new hearts, and one day our sinful nature will be entirely eradicated and we will dwell with Christ forever in perfection. The battle of the flesh vs. our new hearts in Christ is familiar to every Christ follower. The daily struggle between the two is best described by the Apostle Paul in Romans 7:14-25 (ESV):

For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Paul accurately captures the concept of the flesh by calling it “the sin that dwells within me” in this passage. Conversely, he refers to the new heart as his “inner being.” He doesn’t divide his nature in an attempt to eradicate his own personal responsibility for sin, but rather to explain the reality that we have to live with these two natures until we die and are united with Christ in perfection.

But isn’t my heart evil?
Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I continually point out aspects of Christianity that no longer effectively serve the Church (the people not the steeple), of which there are many. But aside from church architecture, monologue sermonizing, fakeness, and many other things the pastor-CEO’s teach, one of the most dangerous teachings in modern Christianity is that our hearts are evil. I’m not talking about nonbelievers here, Scripture makes it clear our hearts are evil apart from Christ. I am talking about once we become Christians. Pastor-CEO’s primarily base this off of Jeremiah 17:9, which says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (King James Version). This really is not an accurate translation of this passage, however. The passage would be more correctly rendered, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, ESV).

Without Christ, the heart is certainly desperately wicked, but when we receive the indwelling Spirit of God, Jesus gives us a new heart. He promised this to His people long ago in the book of Ezekiel. Speaking of the new covenant in the Messiah, God said:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. –Ezekiel 36:25-27 (ESV)

‘Flesh’ in this passage merely refers to our physical being. But notice two phrases: “I will give you a new heart,” and “I… will cause you … to obey.” The Apostle Paul again offers an extremely helpful explanation. He says that “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV). Very simply put, because of Christ I am a new creation and can now choose to live from my new heart. I am no longer bound by my flesh in its hostility to God and inability to please Him (Romans 8:6-8), I can now choose to obey, and His Spirit even causes me to obey.

Christ’s perfect righteousness gets credited to my account, and when God looks at me He no longer sees my shortcomings and fleshly desires, but He instead sees the holiness of His Son, Jesus Christ. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV). We will never be free from our fleshly nature while here on earth, but we have the same power that raised Jesus from the dead available to us in order to die to our flesh daily and choose to follow Christ and walk in His Spirit (Ephesians 1:19-20; Romans 8:11; Galatians 5:16).

And that’s all because Mary had a little Lamb. His fleece was stained with blood. And everyone who killed the man was the target of his love.

Let’s compare modern-day sermons to how messages were delivered in the Old and New Testament Church.

Old Testament Preaching/Teaching:

• The audience actively participated and interruptions were common.
• Prophets and priests didn’t prepare their messages beforehand.
• Any male older than 12 could be selected to read the text.
• Rabbi’s worked and lived among the common people, they all held day jobs.

New Testament Preaching:

• It often was spontaneous.
• It was delivered on special occasions to deal with specific problems.
• It had no structure, it often involved more dialogue than monologue (audience participation and interruption).
• One needed no special credentials to preach.
• Anyone was free to interject with a song, a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. It didn’t have to be pre-planned or approved, the people of God could discern truth from error themselves by searching Scripture.

Modern-Day Sermons:

• Delivered regularly, usually once a week.
• Given mostly by the same person, typically the pastor or ordained guest speaker.
• Spoken to a passive audience as a monologue.
• Usually follow a certain format (e.g. intro/video clip/funny story, three points, conclusion).

Is the modern-day sermon worth hanging on to? Today we often judge a church service by the delivery and content of the sermon, essentially relegating Sunday morning to a pastor’s performance on his or her message. Does the sermon and the way it’s delivered really help or does it reinforce passivity and stifle others from practicing their gifts? Frank Viola, in his book Pagan Christianity, points out:

…. the sermon fails to put the hearers into a direct, practical experience of what has been preached. Thus the typical sermon is a swimming lesson on dry land. . . . The church needs fewer pulpiteers and more spiritual facilitators. . . . We move far outside of biblical bounds when we allow teaching to take the form of a conventional sermon and relegate it to a class of professional orators. . . .

…. Research conducted by The Barna Group has shown that sermons are generally ineffective at facilitating worship, at drawing people closer to God, and at conveying life-changing information to those in the audience.

Take note of the key word throughout this entire post: audience. Are we trying to foster an audience or a community?

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” — The Apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 (ESV)

DISCLAIMER: I’ve already had to delete a nasty comment in reference to this post, so to clarify: I’m not denying that God can and does work through sermons, I’m simply questioning if it’s really the best way to do things.

My wife, mom, brother, friend, cousins and I went to the Indianapolis 500 this year. We saw a couple groups of people who were “evangelizing” on the streets. The first example we saw was a group of people simply handing out gospel tracts by asking, “Did you get one of these?” Subtle, yet it can be effective.

The second example was a guy with a loudspeaker telling the crowd that they were going to hell for being drunkards and sinners. Not so effective. Stupid, in fact. This guy is profaning the name of Christ.

But the other day I heard about this guy. You have to admit, it’s a unique approach. And it was very effective.

This guy also mentions a campus pastor who did something very similar using a sign that said, “Religion is for the weak.” Jesus didn’t attract large crowds by using sound marketing principles. In fact, on some days He lost more followers than he gained. His crucifixion cost Him almost all of His followers. Those weren’t good marketing tactics – but they were amazing ways of saving us. I think Christ’s followers should be known for thinking outside of the box.

What are some ways you have seen people effectively “thinking out of the box” when it comes to evangelism? Why does impersonal evangelism usually fail?

The dictionary very eloquently defines a misogynist as “a man who hates women.” It seems that much of our theology was written by misogynists. Not that the Bible doesn’t say things that seem to indicate male headship (”women must remain silent in church”, “I do not permit a woman to speak”, etc.), but then again it also supports slavery and head coverings for women – practices we no longer follow. And yet gender inequality remains a reality in much of American Christianity. My purpose here is not to break down key texts in the debate, but for a great book that does just that, read Slaves, Women & Homosexuals: Exploring the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis by William J. Webb. My intention is to simply make a point using logic.

Most of my readers would agree that there is no biblical support for a clergy/laity distinction, nor is there any distinction between sacred and secular. Church is not something we attend, it is something we are. Thus there should not be a special set of rules governing church life vs. so-called “secular” life as a Christian. Yet this is exactly what people do when it comes to the issue of women’s role in the church. For some reason, most evangelicals will tell you that a man is the head of the household, women cannot be pastors – and yet they will work for a female boss at their office. Hmm…. why the distinction?

So a woman can have authority over a man and even be his college professor, but she can’t teach him in church or have any say-so in the home? That is asinine. Logically, you can only have it one way or the other. If you honestly believe that women can’t teach men or hold authority over them, then you should not work for a female boss at work or send your sons to a school with female teachers. I’m not joking. Why is it ok to reserve misogynistic theology for the church but not in the fictitious “secular” realm? THERE IS NO SUCH DISTINCTION. This is because those who teach this often don’t really believe it. They recognize that women are equal, and treat them as such in every arena other than the local church. If you really believe in biblical primogeniture, then it applies in church, at home, AND in society.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” – Galatians 3:28

P.S. Dan wrote this post, not Tiffany. But it has her full approval

Chris Brogan, a social media blogger, recently posted on the difference between an audience and a community. He writes:

The difference between an audience and a community is which direction the chairs are pointing. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. When we say community and we mean our selling demographic, that’s not the same thing. When we say community and we mean audience to absorb our message, that’s not the same thing. It’s important to understand this.

It’s okay to want an audience. When we’re trying to build awareness, we want an audience. We create things to get people’s attention. For some, the creation is advertising. For others, it’s face to face events. For others, it’s content (like this blog post). If you’re clever, you create in a variety of formats.

This builds audience. Audiences are those folks who gather to hear what you have to say. But that’s not a community.

Jesus often attracted large audiences. But He attracted most of them outside of synagogues, and He attracted nonbelievers. He met with believers, primarily His disciples, in more intimate settings. The church today seems to have this backwards. We make believers our audiences, and hang out in homes and more intimate settings with our non-believing friends. There is definitely room for having audiences of believers, but this is certainly not the primary gathering method, nor should it be the central financial focus.

Are churches today doing more to build communities or audiences? What do architecture, format, and seating arrangements have to do with it? How can these be changed to create a community instead of an audience?