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The Gospel According to Chopin

By Matt · Comments (2)

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Earlier this month I was taking a seminary class at Luther Seminary with John Roberto of Lifelong Faith Associates. During one of the classes, he showed us what may be the best TED video I’ve ever seen. It could be titled, “The Gospel According to Chopin” (by the way, I am in no way a classical music person, which illustrates the point even better). Watch it below… my thoughts follow.

Some intersections with the gospel & theology:

Discipleship is more like teaching the piano than passing on information en masse. Think about how kids learn to play the piano: a parent or a teacher sits down on the bench next to them one-on-one. They aren’t invited into a class when they hit a certain age and are expected to learn to play the piano.
We can “live into” realities that are not present.
Vision must be big & not incremental. Moving from 3% to 4% is not visionary. We should strive for 100%.
Stop emphasizing every note, but think about the long line from b to e
When other people’s eyes are not shining, who am I being to cause that? Not, what is wrong with them?
Our job is to awaken the possibilities in others
The conductor never speaks but engages all
We must believe in the outcome
One-buttock playing = passionate, consuming, internalized
His face showed he cared and was passionate.

What takeaways did you have from the video?

Comments (2)

Categories : Ecclesiology, Youth Ministry

Tags : church, discipleship, gospel

Are You a Coach or a Player?

By Matt · Comments (6)

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

If you follow sports, you know that there is a difference between a great player and a great coach. The best players often do not make good coaches, and many great coaches weren’t exactly stand-out players. Phil Jackson, the great Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Laker is considered by many to be a coaching genius. Yes, he played professional basketball, but spent most of his career coming off of the bench.

When you think about it, the difference between coaching the game and playing the game makes sense. There are different gifts, talents, and analytical skills that are best suited to one role or the other. Some people are simply better coaches than they are players.

My question is: do “players” and “coaches” exist in congregational ministry? I’m thinking more along the lines of leadership roles more so than at a local congregational levels. Are seminary professors, theologians, writers, and consultants the coaches for leaders in ministry while pastors and ministers are the players? If that’s the case, then perhaps there are mediocre pastors or youth ministers who got fired from their last three churches because of poor leadership who can help coach the rest of us.

And, maybe we should stop looking at people’s personal “track record” as players and instead look at their record as coaches. Just because someone led and grew a youth ministry or church does not mean that they are qualified to write a book telling anyone else how to do it. They might be great players, but not necessarily great coaches.

Instead, we need to look at coaches’ “records” as coaches. Have they helped make better pastors and leaders? Have they helped other leaders to utilize their gifts? Do they have a record of making positive changes in real ministries?

Does any of this make sense? Who fulfills the role of a coach in ministry leadership? Or does the analogy not apply?

Comments (6)

Categories : Ecclesiology

Tags : leadership

Is "Grow" a Four Letter Word?

By Matt · Comments (5)

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Over the past few weeks I have been listening to a lot of podcasts from William Willimon, who is currently the Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of the United Methodist Church. I didn’t know much about Willimon much before this recent spate of listening, except that he was dean of the Chapel and professor at Duke University. And that he’s written books with Stanley Hauerwas (a good thing in my opinion).

He comes across as a down-to-earth guy who has a deep understanding of theology and church history. He’s just the kind of guy that I think we need leading churches today.

There is something in his leadership that just doesn’t sit right with me, though. It makes me quite uncomfortable, actually. Willimon puts quite an emphasis on growth in congregations. No, not metaphysical, intrinsic, personal, spiritual growth. I’m talking about numbers, attendance, giving, things-you-can-count growth. He recently published a blog post entitled, “Anything worth doing for God is worth counting.” In that post he explains that since becoming bishop he has instituted the use of the Conference Dashboard, which is a way for congregations to log in every week and report their numbers. He describes it this way:

Every church logs in on Monday morning and reports their numbers for that Sunday’s attendance, baptisms, professions of faith, offering, and participation in mission. Anyone can see the numbers for any church in our Conference over the past three years.

As you might expect, he has received a lot of push-back from congregations about his use of these metrics. People are skeptical about making Christian faith “all about the numbers” and “just putting butts in the pews” (I think I would probably be among them). He responds out of his own theological heritage:

There may be something to be said for some of these slogans. Except not in the United Methodist Church. We’re Wesleyans. That means we believe in the growth of the Kingdom of God. John Wesley had friction with the established church of his day, not only because of his vibrant Trinitarian theology, but also because of his refusal to limit his ministry to the moribund English parochial system. From the beginning, Methodists were inveterate counters and numbers keepers.

I have personally been averse to counting, mainly because I have seen it abused so many times. There are ways to grow a congregation or a youth group that have nothing to do with the gospel. You can bribe people into doing anything. (i.e. Come to youth group and get a free iPod!)

My stance has always been that growth is tangential: it is a result of healthy congregations, but you can never hit it if you aim for it. Growth happens as a result of proclaiming and living the gospel, not as a result of targeted marketing and growth strategies. We see that in Acts: in quite a few places the Bible tells us how many people were added to their number.

Have we swung the pendulum too far away from counting? Should we start counting again? Is there a better way to count? Should growth be the thing we are aiming for or is it only a second-order sign of health and maturity?

Or is “grow” a four letter word in ministry?

Comments (5)

Categories : Ecclesiology

Tags : church growth, growth, willimon

Luther Seminary: Free, Legit Resources

By Matt · Comments (1)

Friday, October 9th, 2009

One thing I am convinced of is that the church needs to be working towards more truly open source styles of resourcing for ministry. Some will disagree, saying that is unsustainable, and that you have to pay people in order to get the best work. That might be true if the church was bound to operate only out of free-market principles, but it isn’t (or shouldn’t?).

Now, some places say they offer free resources, but you have to register for their website, they only offer samples of resources you can then buy, or they have plain useless, low-quality stuff. Luther Seminary is not one of those places. They offer lots of free resources for people and churches with no strings attached. There are two which stand out as the creme de la creme of church resources:

WorkingPreacher.org – This is an amazing resource for preachers who use the lectionary to preach their sermons. They have commentary on every lectionary passage every week by top-notch scholars. They have an audio podcast with reflections on the week’s texts. There are short video snippets of insights for honing the craft of preaching. There are articles that help preachers integrate theology with culture through cultural commentary. All of these resources are made available every week, for absolutely free.
EntertheBible.org – Another high quality resource with absolutely free resources to aid in Bible study. You know how you go to those websites that offer “free Bible study tools” and only use public domain publications that are old and out of date (think Matthew Henry’s Commentary, Easton’s Bible Dictionary, etc.)? Yeah, this isn’t one of those sites. Instead, they have new articles written by current professors on almost every single book of the Bible, different time periods during the biblical era, commentary on certain passages, new articles on biblical people and places, and more. Of course, if you want to sign up for an account, you can. An account will allow you to keep track of your notes on passages, track your learning, and follow study paths that have been created for the site. This is a truly top-notch resource for Bible study.

I’m highly impressed with the quality of resources that are available on these websites. Not only the quality, but also the quantity. There is loads of information available on these two sites.

My question is, when will we get something like this for youth ministry? I would love to see a free one-stop website with:

Youth-oriented lessons available in one place for every book of the Bible
Topical lessons, too
Resource articles for dealing with different teen crisis issues
Small group training materials
Video illustrations for different topics
Worship ideas for youth ministry
Ways to incorporate the church calendar into youth ministry
Tips and tricks for administration and planning

Come on Luther Seminary (and donors), let’s see something of equal quality available specifically for youth ministry.

I think I have the know-how to at least get some of the stuff above on the web in one place, but it wouldn’t be as high-tech, easily searchable, and user-friendly as the two sites above. To do it right will take a bit of money and some commitment from youth workers.

Can it happen?

Comments (1)

Categories : Ecclesiology, Youth Ministry

Tags : free resources

The Best Church Assessment or Survey?

By Matt · Comments (1)

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Our pastor wants to do some sort of church wide assessment or survey to get a snapshot of our congregation’s spiritual health. What are some of the best options out there? We are willing to pay some for it, but not an exorbitant amount. Here would be the perfect solution for us:

Individuals fill out a survey online or on paper (preferably both options would be available for our non-techy folks).
The individual gets some sort of individual analysis done with strengths (and maybe weaknesses) with possible suggestions how they can continue to grow.
The results are automatically aggregated so that church leadership can get a sense of the overall level of Christian maturity, strengths, and weaknesses for the organization. Perhaps there is also a congregational analysis that is returned after the survey is completely.
Obviously, we want everyone to be able to remain anonymous to church staff while getting their own individual results and feedback from the assessment.
This assessment should be fairly theologically robust. For example, we don’t just want to count how many times people come to church a month, how much they tithe, and if they have daily personal devotions. Those would be good things to know, but it needs to get beyond typical measures. Things like family habits and rituals or how often they incorporate faith at work (or if they think it matters) would be things that might help as well.
We want to be able to do this on a regular basis, like every year or two.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Comments (1)

Categories : Ecclesiology

Church as Incarnational Pneumatology

By Matt · Comments (0)

Tuesday, September 8th, 2009

The following is a section from a paper I wrote this summer for a youth ministry course.

Craig Van Gelder offers a robustly theological explanation for the nature of the church that gives a glimpse of how exactly God is present through this group of human beings:

In this view, the Spirit-created church lives as the very body of Christ in the world. Its existence declares that the full power of God’s redemptive work is already active in the world through the Spirit. It lives as a demonstration that heaven has already begun for God’s people. This Spirit-led community possesses all the power of God’s presence, even while it awaits the final judgment of evil that will lead to the creation of the new heaven and new earth.[1]

Van Gelder roots the nature of the church in the activity of the Spirit, in pneumatology. If this is true, then a better way to think of ecclesiology is by using a different set of theological terms that better gets at its nature. The nature of the church is nothing less than an incarnational pneumatology. One of Paul’s favorite metaphors for the church is the body of Christ: “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

Such an understanding of the Christian faith takes the burden off of the church to be successful and instead calls the church into faithfulness as it attends to the action of God and follows the Holy Spirit in that action. This moves ministry beyond gimmicks and marketing methods and moves towards discernment and spiritual practice.

Just as the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus (Luke 3:22), so the Spirit descended upon the church (Acts 2:1ff). The church is, therefore, more than a collection of individuals who attest to a past event (as profound and cosmologically significant as that past event may have been) but instead the church bears the message of Jesus Christ within her very being as the church is the current primary means of God’s revelation to the world. Paul’s description of the church as the body of Christ is more than mere metaphor. Indeed, it is a theological assertion that the work of Christ continues through the church. Drawing from Jürgen Moltmann, Anderson agrees when he says, “the messianic mission of Jesus is not entirely completed in his death and resurrection. Through the coming of the Spirit, his history becomes the church’s gospel for the world. The church participates in his mission, becoming the messianic church for the coming kingdom.” [2]

Thus, such a view of the church is more than nineteenth century liberal theology or humanist anthropocentrism but is truly an incarnational pneumatology. The church did not decide upon herself that she should possess such a task and status, but God is the one who elected for the church to be the continuing agent of God through the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost. In ministry the church continues in the ministry of Christ: “The form of the church is thus incarnational; not another incarnation, but a continuation of the one incarnate life of God in the form of Jesus Christ.” The formation of mature Christians must move past current educational models towards practice-based action, whether that is through ritual and worship or acts of service and justice. Because the Holy Spirit continues to be active in the world, Christian formation must take the form of action.

Craig Van Gelder, The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 32.
Ray S. Anderson, The Soul of Ministry: Forming Leaders for God’s People (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), 160.
Ibid., 139.

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Categories : Ecclesiology

Tags : Craig Van Gelder, incarnational pneumatology, missional, Ray Anderson

The Church and the Rich Young Ruler

By Matt · Comments (0)

Monday, August 31st, 2009

I’m going to be preaching later this fall, and the gospel text for that Sunday includes Mark 10:17-23. In an initial reading of the passage, I couldn’t help but wonder if today we need to be reading the passage something like this:

As Jesus started on his way, a pastor ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must our church do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false testimony, do not defraud, honor your father and mother.’”

“Teacher,” he declared, “all these we have kept since we were young.”

Jesus looked at him and loved him. “One thing your church lacks,” he said. “Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

At this the man’s face fell. He went away sad, because his church had large buildings, many full-time staff, and valuable land.

Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God!”

Is this one of the things this text is saying to us today?

In the ELCA, congregations take in almost $2 billion in giving annually and have around $20 billion in assets, presumably mostly in real estate. Should some of our congregations start selling off their assets?

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Categories : Ecclesiology

Tags : church, elca, rich young ruler

Transforming Churches into Mission Centers: Rethinking Ordination

By Matt · Comments (3)

Wednesday, August 19th, 2009

I’m at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly as a voting member, and there has been some very encouraging discussion on the requirement for the church to become a missional church. Those of us in emergent/missional conversations know this to already be true, but making this a strong emphasis across a mainline national church body is a welcome move.

However, I wonder how serious we are willing to become a missional church.

There is enough controversy at this assembly with the sexuality debate before us, but there is another controversial debate that this church must wage in order to become driven by God’s mission. It is an ecclesiological debate that effects the very fabric of local congregations and their practice of the faith as a community. It is a huge structural, logistical, and bureaucratic nightmare to even think about addressing. But if we do not begin to ask these questions, we will not enact foundational change in local congregations.

Ordination must be rethought.

If we are going to be a church free to move swiftly with the movement of the Spirit, a church that takes seriously the priesthood of all believers, a church rooted in local community, a church that believes that all are called by God and equipped for ministry, then the current structural handcuffs that go along with ordination, seminary, the call process, the sacraments, and the host of other issues related to ecclesiology must be removed.

I know the implications of this suggestion. I have lots of further thoughts, but don’t have the time to spell them out right now. This is a debate that will eventually be had, but I am simply advocating we have this debate before it is too late.

I’ve considered proposing a resolution to the assembly to begin a process to re-evaluate our ecclesiology, especially concerning ordination, but don’t think that I will have the time to do the necessary legwork before the deadline tomorrow morning. I would surely be defeated, but would put the issue before a host of people to whom it matters most.

I welcome your thoughts. More to come from me later.

Comments (3)

Categories : Ecclesiology

Tags : #CWA09, Churchwide Assembly, elca

Adventures in Ecclesiology: ELCA Churchwide Assembly

By Matt · Comments (3)

Wednesday, August 12th, 2009

Some of you may or may not know this, but I am a voting member in next week’s ELCA Churchwide Assembly. Because of that, I received about 500 pages worth of the Pre-Assembly Report in the mail a few weeks ago. It’s filled with reports from churchwide officers and offices, recommendations for action, information about procedures, the ELCA Constitution and Continuing Resolutions, and on and on. As a voting member of this assembly, I am quite conflicted.

My gut instinct says that this is not the way the church is supposed to operate. The church is not stacks of paper dictated by Robert’s Rule of Order where the majority always gets their way. And yet, on the other hand, when you are talking about coordinating efforts between massive groups of people, is there really any other way? When missional activities involve millions of dollars and millions of people, doesn’t that necessitate a slow-moving bureaucracy?

For example, one of the great things we are considering is our participation in a serious effort to fight malaria in Africa, an effort that spans across churches other than the ELCA and requires a commitment of tens of millions of dollars. Obviously, to make any significant dent in this disease across a whole continent requires a massive undertaking. I’m not sure that a bunch of independent local churches could coordinate this sort of large-scale initiative. Perhaps I’m wrong.

So, I am going into this assembly with an open mind. While my instincts tell me this is not the way a church should be structured, I am open to being proved wrong. This will be an interesting adventure in ecclesiology.

What about you? Is denominational bureaucracy a two-edged sword? Is there an alternative, especially as it relates to large-scale efforts?

Comments (3)

Categories : Ecclesiology

Tags : #CWA09, Churchwide Assembly, elca

From Eternity to Here Blog Tour

By Matt · Comments (0)

Tuesday, June 9th, 2009

Frank Viola is promoting his latest book, From Eternity to Here: Rediscovering the Ageless Purpose of God, on a multitude of blogs today. I have chosen to review the book, but others are featuring guest posts or posting an interview with Frank. To see a full list, scroll to the bottom of this post.

Frank Viola started rocking the boat with his book Pagan Christianity, which explores the pagan roots of many of todays accepted church practices. He followed that book up with Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity which, as the title suggests, seeks to deinstitutionalize the church and foster organic communities of faith. I have never read any of Viola’s previous books, but have only read about them (they were on my “to read list” but I never got around to them).

Viola says that From Eternity to Here is a much different kind of book:

Out of all of the books I have penned, this volume embodies the central burden of my life and ministry. My other volumes on radical church restoration… are dedicated to the practical outworking of the timeless insights contained in these pages. Consequently, this volume can rightly be regarded as my flagship book and a primer for all my previous works. (14)

The book is billed as being three volumes in one, but in reality none of the “volumes” stands to well on its own. To really understand the thrust of Viola’s argument you need to take the book together as a cohesive whole. Each section of the book develops a particular metaphor of the church, the first being the church as the “bride of Christ.” In this section Viola used romantic imagery, perhaps excessively so, to tell a cohesive story of romance as God pursues his Bride from Genesis to Revelation. In section two, the theme of the “house of God” is addressed. Drawing from Old Testament imagery of the temple as God’s dwelling place, Viola contends that the current dwelling place of God is in his church. This makes the church more than just a collection of individuals:

What the Father was to Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is to His church (John 6:57, 20:21, etc.). The church is the habitation of God in the Spirit. This lifts the church out of “the mutual admiration society” up to the level of being the very body of Christ. The church has never been nor will it ever be a human institution. (163)

The final image that is explored is the church as the “body of Christ” and the “family of God.” The angle that Viola takes is to speak of the church as a “new species” of human beings, an alternative community, a peculiar people. This community is central to being a Christian, not an optional activity:

I cannot fully know Christ on my own. Neither can you. I must know Him through His body. I must know Him through my sisters and brothers. And so must you. But in order for us to know Christ through the members of His body, we have to get close to them. Christian community is God’s answer to that requirement. (264)

From Eternity to Here is a book that I desperately wanted to like. If you know me and my deep interest in ecclesiology and the nature of the church, all of this sounds right up my alley, and it is. In fact, most of the conclusions that Viola draws are spot-on in line with my ecclesiology. I loved how he was not afraid to put the level of emphasis on the church that he did. Many might shy away from saying some of the radical things that he does, but I think he is right in most places.

Unfortunately, there was simply something that left a bad taste in my mouth when it was all over. I did not much care for the way the book was written and his arguments were constructed. The first section outlining the bride of Christ went a bit too far in my estimation. He used overly romantic language and imagery where, in my opinion, it was not warranted. There was a mishmash of scripture translations quoted, something that always raises my eyebrows because it suggests that the translation that best makes the author’s point was used.

In places Viola was a bit sloppy theologically. He would say things like, “through [Christ's] death and resurrection, He became a life-giving Spirit” (161). In other places he affirmed the Trinity, but such quotes seemed to contradict that. As I said, he was not heretical, but I think places like this are simply sloppy and could mislead people to the real point that he is trying to make.

I could go on, as there were lots of little places as I read that I scribbled a question mark out in the margins because I questioned his exegesis, theology, or method of argument. While the conclusions that he draws are right on, wading through the rest of the book to get there is cumbersome. I’m afraid to say it, but there are really better books with which to spend your time on this topic.

OTHER BLOGS PARTICIPATING IN THE “FROM ETERNITY TO HERE” BLOG CIRCUIT

Today (June 9th), the following blogs are discussing Frank Viola’s new bestselling book “From Eternity to Here” (David C. Cook, 2009). The book just hit the May CBA Bestseller List. Some are posting Q & A with Frank; others are posting full reviews of the book. To read more reviews and order a copy at a 33% discount, go to Amazon.com. If you live in the USA, you can also visit your local Family Christian Store to grab a copy. They are having a special promotion this week.

For more resources, such as downloadable audios, the free Discussion Guide, the Facebook Group page, etc. go to the official website: http://www.FromEternitytoHere.org

Enjoy the reviews and the Q and A:

—–

Out of Ur – http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2009/05/viola.html

Shapevine – www.Shapevine.com (June newsletter)

Brian Berly – http://www.brianeberly.com

DashHouse.com – http://www.DashHouse.com/

Greg Boyd – http://www.gregboyd.org/blog/

Vision Advance – http://vision2advance.blogspot.com/

David Flowers – http://ddflowers.wordpress.com

Kingdom Grace – http://kingdomgrace.wordpress.com

Captain’s Blog – http://www.captainestes.blogspot.com/

Christine Sine – http://godspace.wordpress.com