1. Jesus IS light-years more spiritual and brilliant because He IS God.
2. Jesus IS the expert because … He IS God.
3. The passage in Matthew 15:21-28 about the dogs …

“21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”

23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”

I don’t believe that Jesus let her win. How can you win an arguement with or out-reason God? Jesus knew her reasoning and faith before she even spoke. I believe He wanted the disciples and others to hear the discussion to have her as an example of faith among Gentiles, setting the stage for their later ministry.

Sometimes I think they need people who are willing to help the church change rather than bad mouthing it or starting other churchs saying that “We are not like such and such, we do this and this”.

How can we help the church change if we are not able to talk about what needs to change in the first place? I am not necessarily in the same place as Matt but I appreciate his thoughts, as I do those in a more traditional place. We need to hear people’s concerns before we can make the change take place.

What I’m calling for is exactly what you are saying… church communities need to prayerfully examine the (at least de facto) stance that preaching is the best/only/primary way to reveal the Word of God.

One person can’t be all things for all people. But if a pastor has a gift for preaching, I would not want to see that gift restricted because it happens to be old-fashioned. Not everyone is ready for the discussion format proposed by the younger generation.

I, myself, am ready for the discussion, but as an addition, not as a replacement. I’ve seen first-hand how much goes into preaching (my mother is a certified lay preacher), but I also have seen how the discipline of preparing and delivering sermons has caused her faith and understanding to grow exponentially and unlocked other gifts for her along the way.

But it almost sounds like people are just trying to find an excuse to abolish the sermon because it doesn’t suit their personal preferences. Maybe I’m reading ‘between the lines’ too much?

To many times people who have been hurt by the institutional church end up in places like holy ground because they find something there that they did not get in institutional churches (maybe a since of community, love, The Gospel lived out). But as church leaders is not our job to bash the institutional church to comfort those who have been hurt by it. And say that our way is the right way. It is to show and tell them that “yes the church does make mistakes like anything”, but it is our job to show and tell them about the Gospel.

Yes, the world longs to be in some sort of community, relationship where they are accepted and loved and cared for. Sad to say that mamy times the institutinal church has abandoned its call to LOVE GOD, and LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR.

Many of my friends aren’t big fans of churches, but have a deep and abiding love for the Church. Few if any of my friends have abandoned the institutional church, many are currently or were formerly on church staffs and none that I know of have stopped being a part institutional churches. The reality, though, is that we have found that most of our growth as followers of Jesus has come out of strong relationships, scripture study, and prayer, rather than institutional church worship and programs and, more often than not, our work to bring transformation to institutional churches has been strongly rebuffed.

That said, we cannot put our hope in creating a better “church” (something that my friends and I fall into all too often), rather we must put our hope in God (manifest in the trinity).

Though the organized church has many problems (it is made up of imperfect people) it has many great qualities about it. Sometimes I think they need people who are willing to help the church change rather than bad mouthing it or starting other churchs saying that “We are not like such and such, we do this and this”.

Just some thoughts.

I

When I am listening to a sermon, I am actively processing what I hear. Basically, there is a dailog in my head as I interact with the points made and examples given. I recognize that this doesn’t work for everyone, which is why you are not compelled by law or by spirit to attend a traditional service and listen to the sermon. But it works well for me, and is a powerful spiritual food. Participating in a spiritual dialog with more than about 3 people is much more difficult for me (and I’ve tried), which is why I am not compelled to attend a non-traditional service.

My point is, I don’t try to take away your spiritual food. But you seem to think you have the right to take away mine. There’s more going on in a sermon than just a talking head that you can disrupt at will

I couldn’t agree more!

Mike,

Jacob wrestled with God and won (Gen 32 towards the end)… so I guess technically, it is somewhat Biblical to defeat God at something, perhaps even an argument? I’m sure the contest was rigged though .

God’s Glory,
Lew

1. Jesus IS light-years more spiritual and brilliant because He IS God.
2. Jesus IS the expert because … He IS God.
3. The passage in Matthew 15:21-28 about the dogs …

“21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession.”

23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”

24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”

25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.

26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to their dogs.”

27 “Yes, Lord,” she said, “but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.”

28 Then Jesus answered, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.”

I don’t believe that Jesus let her win. How can you win an arguement with or out-reason God? Jesus knew her reasoning and faith before she even spoke. I believe He wanted the disciples and others to hear the discussion to have her as an example of faith among Gentiles, setting the stage for their later ministry.

Just a few thoughts.

The church I’m a part of could probably use some more actual preaching. We use that format almost never (maybe a handful of times in the last two years!) and we have at least one truly gifted preacher. And to have a sermon without congregational give-and-take tends to make us as uncomfortable as your question-asking experiment would make the average church. (But actually, we feel free to shout out questions or comments – or heckling – if our “preacher” – whoever that may be – pauses for breath anyway….)

Hmm. New Year’s resolution for Common Table: *more* preaching?

It seems Biblical preaching’s purpose was was more for those who did not believe, and I think even that may have been a lot more relational that what we do – a lot more dialog-driven.

Look at Jesus – people would ask him questions while he was preaching and he would answer. Or sometimes people would offer their own commentary and Jesus would comment back. Or he’d ask them a question, and they would answer. How often does that happen in our “Sunday morning” services unless it’s a modern house church? And even in some house churches there tends to be an unspoken taboo on dialogue during preaching. Sadly many leaders are threatened by questions, or see them as challenges to their “authority”. In many services, if someone were to raise their hand and ask a question, the speaker might answer, but if it happened too much they would very soon be saying something to quiet everyone up. It might be subtle, or it might be overt, but it would be there.

Hey, that would be a fun, trouble-making sociological experiment! Get a band of radicals together and go around to churches and ask questions or make comments during the sermons (they’d have to be genuine questions, not just to be provocative). It would be interesting to see which responded positively and which negatively.

(Had to be said.)

I think that doing everything we can possibly do is a trap we fall into all the time (well, at least I do.)

Living in community has taught me a valuable lesson, when someone says their goal is “to change the world,” run.

That’s not to say that I don’t think we are called to change the world–my friends change the world each and every day. It’s rather to say when our goal is to change the world, it’s about us, not God.

Rather, I would say that we are to do no more and no less than that which God has called us to. It’s less about doing all we can and more about doing what God’s shown us. Unfortunately, we often seek to maximize our outcomes, instead of resting in the fact that God’s way is the best way.

For example: A young woman once told me that she felt called to help with HIV/AIDS in Africa, so she was trying to get a job at the UN. My question to her, after affirming her calling to help with AIDS in Africa, was, “Are you going to the UN because you think it’s the best way to stop HIV/AIDS in Africa or because that’s where God told you to go?” The point is that, in the strange upside-down Kingdom that is God’s, we are often called to do things that don’t seem to be the most effective (Joshua 5:13 – 6:27) and trust that God knows what’s best. Perhaps God’s plan for this young woman is to live the rest of her life with one family in a remote village.

There are a myriad of ways that God could use this to manifest the promises of her call–perhaps she providentially discovers a widely available herb that is highly effective in the treatment of HIV/AIDS, perhaps she inspires the village to do something that transforms the entire continent, or perhaps God’s plan is just for her to love this family well.

My point is that I don’t think it’s about us doing what we think is best or us maximizing the work of our hands, it’s allowing God to use us as He sees fit.

More later.

I have thought a lot about what is the role of Christians in a democratic government, which was recently sparked even more by a discussion surrounding Rick Warren’s forum on shadowsandsymbols.org. After a lot of discussion, I was finally able to express the bottom line for me in one of my comments there, which relates to your comments above:

“I don’t believe lasting societal change happens through governmental politics or institutions. It happens through grassroots love and caring, which is where I believe is the most effective place for Christians to be engaged.”

You hit the nail on the head in your post: we have by and large abdicated our responsibility towards grassroots Christian love, by delegating to the government, and not only the government, but also to Christian institutions. It’s far easier to write that monthly check my local church or other ministry than it is to actually love my neighbor by bringing them a meal when they’re sick, or watching their kids, or whatever.

Not saying we shouldn’t give financially, of course, any more than saying we shouldn’t be actively engaged in our government, which is a privilege of democratic society. Only that, as you said, we shouldn’t substitute those things for actually loving our neighbor. Christ never told us we could delegate that duty to others, did he?

I too have been thinking about writing blog entry on this subject, drawing together thoughts from blog, email and meatspace discussions I’ve been having on this subject (see wikipedia if don’t know what meatspace is).

Thanks for sharing and for giving more food for thought.

i love it when people dont’ know the lingo – don’t know who brian or tony or peter are – don’t know its “a dialogue” – but are somehow *there* regardless. makes it all feel somehow more legit to me when that happens.

i met my wife when she was living in the middle east. she was in the dark about this thing. didn’t have the definitions. didn’t know the authors. and quite honestly, doesn’t really care to. but she was already there non-the-less… just because of the fact that she had lived outside of the country, and thus outside of the christain bubble, and had a different context to speak from.

she could look back at america from swimming in waters outside of our fishbowl and see our consumerism in a whole new light – like some of the dollar figures attached to some of these building programs. and was more than ready to meet in a coffee shop and talk about her experiences with people who didn’t necessarily have seminary degrees. and also more than ready to speak arabic with the iraqi family who was abandoned by our government after being given amnesty and showing up next door to some of our people.

its a big wonderful mess of a conversation.

I am excited about the way you are approaching this though Matt. And if you need a place to stay (and get away) for a few days, you are always welcome at Richmond Hill as my guest. We have many, many rooms.

Spot on, Matt. Getcher ears on, you who have ‘em.

cha ching!

its not fair to put that pressure on someone else (in the name of worship) and it makes no sense to take that pressure on yourself (in the name job security). this system’s gotta change.

(I think you’ve honored both Jesus and Nietsche in one post. Well done.)

I believe that God is seeking to manifest the Church more boldly, which means that church must die.

It sounds a bit like sehnsucht–a kind of joy-longing!

This was a very good post. Your second diagram is a wonderful illustration of what being the Church is.

I have read So You Don’t Want to Go to Church Anymore… it is a great book – very thought provoking. Jacobsen (one of the authors) has his own website/blog, http://www.lifestream.org/. Here you can download some of his other books in PDF form. I recently read his He Loves Me and it was great.

Anyways, great thoughts.

God’s Glory,
Lew

Is that how we might try to do it at FPC?

Peace,
Mike

People worship the cross- they think its ok because the cross is a christian symbol, but we are not called to worship the cross, we are called to worship Christ. There is a difference.

I am going to stop now because I could go on forever but I have homework to do.

Brandy

So I always wondered what someone might really have to say as far as a well formed, critical argument opposing the emergent church. I have been extremely interested in what has been posted on a blog by Matt Pritchard, an old friend who tends to do an excellent job of chronicling his journey. I found this http://www.apprising.org/archives/2006/1... on one of his blog posts. I haven’t had enough time to really formulate a response yet, though initially I see Ken Silva’s argument as having a narrow perspective of the emergent church, as is defined by the community I am a part of. We feel that the greatest incarnational work of Christ is that which is done to “the least of these” (see Matthew 25), and though Jesus claims to be “the way, the truth, and the life” (see John 14), I understand that to be the description the Jews of the Old Testament held for the Torah. You might consider this to be a “social” gospel, however to limit the revolutionary, redemptive, restorational, relational message of Christ as I understand it to solely this one aspect is similar to those who abide in a “once saved/always saved” mindset that states that since they have affirmed their belief in Christ as their personal Lord and Savior, that they can then live their lives with reckless abandon, which I am certain is just as much of a misrepresentation of Calvinist and reformed theology as limiting emergent culture into a “social gospel” is.
Well I suppose I had more to say than I thought, though I must say that in order to truly hear my response to this argument, or even to comprehend my understanding of the gospel, you must build a relationship with me, and be willing to build a relationship with Christ, the living breathing Word of God. For as any true “emergent” leader will tell you, it is only in an intimate community that challenges what we believe, that we can begin to discover the meaning of the gospel.

I’ve been studying his work for months now. Here is my Rob Bell archive and perhaps this will help you see what he teaches more clearly:

http://www.apprising.org/archives/rob_bell/index.html

Thank you for your thoughtful treatment of my post (as usual). I think we are getting at the same point and you have done an excellent job of fleshing out the core of what I am saying from another angle. Bravo!

You write, “The Bible provides a default rule set for our lives and we should seek to obey…” When I read the bible, I don’t always get a “default”. In fact, I often find a lot of contradictions and paradoxes! Thomas Merton expresses a similar sentiment,

“There is, in a word, nothing comfortable about the Bible – until we manage to get so used to it that we make it comfortable for ourselves…Have we ceased to question the book and be questioned by it? Have we ceased to fight it? Then perhaps our reading is no longer serious. For most people, the understanding of the Bible is, and should be, a struggle: not merely to find meanings that can be looked up in books of reference, but to come to terms personally with the stark scandal and contradiction of the Bible itself…Let us not be too sure we know the Bible just because we have learned not to be astonished at it, just because we have learned not to have problems with it.”

You also write, “We must acknowledge the fact that God may call us out of the Biblical framework (certainly not to something against His character) and that we must seek him out in all things.” My questions is, how are you defining a “biblical framework”? I don’t see the examples you cited as a deviation from the “biblical framework”, mostly because I don’t see scripture as being quite so black-and-white.

We must interpret scripture in context. When we look at the examples you cited in the context of history and the broader message of the bible, we gain a more holistic perspective:

1) “Peace is a Biblical directive, however God calls David to war”
Is peace the biblical default? Indeed, we serve a God of peace and Jesus came to give us peace. But we also serve a God who had no qualms with commanding the Israelites to wage war on the surrounding nations and Jesus himself says, “I have not come to bring peace, but a sword”. I’m not so sure peace as a biblical directive is the black-and-white default.

2)”The Bible commands us not to sacrifice our children, yet He calls Abraham to sacrifice Isaac”
Was God calling Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, or was he testing Abraham to see how far his commitment would go? Gen. 22:12 makes me think that God would NOT have allowed Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. I suggest this passage is no way, shape or form condoning child sacrifice and I think it’s unfair to use it as an example of God going against the default. To do so is to miss completely the point of the passage.

3. “The Bible forbids us to marry whores, yet He commands the prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute.” Where does the bible forbid us to marry whores? And, here again, I think it is unfair to use this as an example of God going against the default. When we look at this example in historical context and in the context of the broader message of scripture, we find the point of the story is not that God called Hosea to marry a whore, it’s that God called Hosea to represent His heart for the Israelites. Yancey summarizes this well in his book, The Bible Jesus Read: “…God asks Hosea to act out a shocking parable. Only by living out this drama could Hosea understand, and then relate to others, something of how Israel’s rebuke felt to God.”

4. “The new testament indicates that only men should be in leadership, yet He calls Deborah to lead Israel.” While parts of the NT delineate male headship (ex. 1 Tim 2:11-15, Eph. 5:22-24), there is also a strong precedent set for female leadership (Priscilla instructs Appollos in Acts 18, Nympha and Lydia have house churches, Paul recognizes women as his “co-workers”, Anna is recognized as a prophetess etc.) To make the blanket, black-and-white statement that the default of scripture is that only men should be in leadership is a contradiction to several clear scriptural examples otherwise.

Finally, you write, “Our ultimate responsibility is obedience to the Holy Spirit not to elders, not to ourselves, not to a book, even if the book is written by God.”
I think this statement puts you on thin ice, because you are suggesting that the word of God is fallible. Granted, I agree that elders, ourselves and books are fallible. I’m not sure we can separate the role of the Holy Spirit and the role of the Word of God if we believe that “all scripture is God-breathed”; the two are inextricably linked.

Okay, I suppose I’ve put off Anthropology reading for long enough…Ugh. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and allowing me to share mine.

-Jen

~Brandy

Good to surf across your post just now. If you still need lodging at CCDA, drop me a line COACH at GOAL-PARTNERS dot com.

Encourage folks to stay abreast of CCDAblog.com while they’re at the conference… or what the heck, year-round **smile**.

And if you’ll tag your CCDA-related items with at least the keyword ‘ccda’, we’ll hope to create a bin of all the great CCDA links, articles, posts, photos & videos… HERE.

Blessings brother!
Neil