L.D. Turner
***This is a slight revision of an article that I published in an online Christian magazine about 10 months ago. The magazine does not archive past six months and several folks have written in for copies of the brief report on house churches in America. In light of these facts, I decided to publish the article here on the blog for those who might be interested.
The face of Christianity is gradually changing across America as the first decade of the 21st Century moves toward closure. One striking example of this change is the growing popularity of house churches. Congregants of house churches meet in member’s homes, rather than a centralized church building.
“I am more fulfilled and feel much closer to God,” said Agnes Stanford, a house church member from Birmingham, Alabama. “When I used to go to a standard church, I felt like I was anonymous, just one of a huge crowd. I never had the opportunity, even in Sunday School Class, to discuss the issues I felt were important. I always had someone else telling me what I needed to study.”
Stanford was not a member of a mega-church, although her comments would lead one to believe that she was. Prior to joining a local house church, Stanford attended a Baptist church with an average weekly attendance of 125. Her house church has only 22 members.
“If things get too big, we just break off and start another congregation,” continued Stanford. “Right now, we don’t let it get any bigger than 30 to 35 members.”
Small numbers and more spiritual intimacy are the strong selling points of the house church movement.
“We are a close knit group and try to keep it that way,” said Arnold Stratton, pastor of the house church attended by Stanford. “We are like an extended family and try to support one another in whatever way is needed. We also like to keep things as simple as possible.
Recent research reveals that there are close to 100,000 house churches meeting in the United States at present, and this number may be conservative because many house churches are not affiliated with any national organization. Members of house churches consistently feel that this type of set up allows for more in depth spiritual study and closer fellowship. Further, members tend to take their spiritual development more seriously.
“The people who join us want more than the spiritual fare they receive at larger, traditional churches,” said Stratton. “That’s not a criticism of the traditional brick and mortar church. Those churches do a lot of good, but they are not really set up to help people walk the Christian walk at a deeper level. What we do is try to provide what they are not able to provide. Most of our members say they won’t go back to a standard church again.”
The trend toward revamped worship and study experience is not a new phenomenon. For some time now churches have been seeking new and more relevant ways in which to feed its existing members, while at the same time, bringing new seekers into the fold. Striking an appropriate balance between these two priorities is not always easy.
“I ended up leaving my former church for more than one reason,” said John Starbroker, a 55-year-old insurance salesman. “It was the toughest thing I ever had to do. I had been going to that church since I found the Lord when I was just 16 or so. Everything was great until about five years ago.”
Starbroker went on to tell a tale of increasing strife within the congregation between the older members and the younger believers. It was a disagreement that escalated into a conflict and finally erupted into what Starbroker called “guerrilla warfare.”
“It finally got so bad that people who had loved each others as brother and sisters for years got at each others throats in a big way,” related the insurance salesman. “My wife Gail and I talked it over and decided to hit the bricks before someone threw us under the bus as well.”
Starbroker said that the church eventually fired its pastor; hired a new one; fired him within five months; and then underwent a split in which life-long friends no longer spoke to one another.
“This isn’t what the Lord had in mind,” quipped Starbroker after a service at the house church he now attends.
“I love this place because people genuinely care about each other,” said Gail Starbroker, John’s wife. “It’s not that we don’t have conflicts, we do every now and then. But we get it out in the open and get it resolved before it grows into something worse. Our members here, there are only 16 of us, care about unity more than our personal needs. Sometimes it is better to be kind than to be right.”
Most experts on church growth agree that the house church movement is gaining momentum at a dramatic pace and will become, as the century progresses, one of the new, popular faces of Christianity.
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
Monday, December 15, 2008
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Fullness of God and Spiritual Formation
L.D. Turner
As Christians, each follower of Christ is not called to a lukewarm, mediocre walk with God. Instead, if we are to be the best version of ourselves, we are to pay close attention to just what it is Christ is calling us to be. At times, when we truly analyze the claim and responsibility placed on us by Jesus, we might think it anything but an easy yoke. This is especially true when we read between the lines of what Paul is telling us is several of his letters.
Taken singularly, it is easy to perhaps miss the magnitude of the goal of Christian spiritual formation. I think this is one of the reasons that many Christians so often become so complacent in their faith. Each week they get dressed, go to church, sing a few hymns, take part in corporate prayer, listen to a sermon that waters down the gospel message, put their envelope in the collection plate, then speed to their favorite eatery before the waiting line gets too long.
To tell you the truth, somehow I think Jesus and Paul had more than this in mind. What Jesus had in mind was spelled out with clarity in the Sermon on the Mount, sort of a compact distillation of the kingdom principles he brought with him when he left the glories of the heavenly court and came a'callin' on earth at that stable in Bethlehem. Let's have a closer look at Paul's take on what happened as a result of Christ's mission.
I am certain you are aware of Paul's idea, repeated in one way or another throughout his correspondence with the fledgling churches, of the relationship between Jesus and God. Paul tells us that all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ, which meant that God and Jesus were in some mysterious way the same being.
In the Jewish culture of his day, Paul was making an incredible claim here. Jews were not supposed to make any image of God and even to speak his name was considered a capital offense. Now, here was Paul echoing Jesus by implying that the great and mighty Jehovah was in essence a loving, cosmic "Daddy" who was not only the Father of Jesus, but was also Jesus himself. And the reverse was true. Jesus was not only a great teacher and a skilled Rabbi; He was not only a great healer and the leader, the Grand Poobah of a band of shady-looking disciples. Jesus, according to Paul, was Jehovah Himself.
Standing alone, that sort of statement was enough to give the High Priest a prize-winning wedgie. Paul, however, wasn't finished. In fact, he was just getting started. If you take a look at Ephesians 3:19, the Apostle tells the early church members that he prays "that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (NSRV) Here Paul was pulling no punches; instead, he went straight for the knockout. Paul basically was saying that he prayed that, as Christians, the new believers were expected to become like Jesus.
No wonder the religious establishment saw Paul as a dangerous, if not demented, man. Equating Jesus with God was a reach. Saying that a human being could become like Jesus was beyond the pale of acceptability.
In case his readers missed his point, the Apostle repeats this theme in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. In verse 13 he equates Christian maturity with the achieving "the measure of the full stature of Christ." He then drives home the point two verses later by stating:
Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (Ephesians 4:15 NRSV).
In case you might be thinking that this message was somehow only for the believers in Ephesus, think again. Let's wander over to Corinth and take a look at one of Paul's letters to this stressed out church. After briefly covering a few topics, Paul tells the Corinthian believers that we "beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness" (2 Cor. 3:18). Aiming his words in a different direction, Paul tells the Philippians to emulate the same manner of being that Jesus had (Phi. 2:5-8).
By now it should be clear that that Paul felt it essential to get this message across. He believed that in order to function as effective Christ-followers in their world, the members of the early church had to work, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, in securing personal change and continually grow toward the full stature of Christ. This was the goal for the early church and it is our goal for today.
The logical question at this point is: How am I supposed to pull this off?
It is here that we are confronted with one of the many paradoxical conundrums of the spiritual life. The first shall be last - the last shall be first - to save your life you must lose it - etc. For the theme we are discussing, we are confronted with the riddle of Christian spiritual formation. There is nothing that we can do to save ourselves or sanctify ourselves; it is all a free gift of grace and we just have to accept it. Still, Paul tells us to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling."
So what gives here?
Some sincere believers will tell you to stay away from spiritual disciplines because they are, at the end of the day, useless. We are powerless to change ourselves; only the Holy Spirit can pull that one off. Some of these Christians will go so far as to tell you that engaging in the classical spiritual disciplines is like sleeping with Satan....all this spiritual formation mumbo jumbo smells like smoke and brimstone.
Other equally sincere Christians will tell you the opposite. Even though personal transformation is a free gift of grace, we have a responsibility as well. We have to place ourselves in a receptive position in order to maximize our potential for change. I confess that I am more in this camp than in the former. I believe that spiritual formation requires a good deal of effort on our parts. God makes it all possible, but we have to appropriate what he has made possible. It's like the great Quaker mystic Rufus Jones often said:
"The grace of God is like the wind blowing across the lake. If you want to get to the other side, you have to raise your sail."
I will discuss the spiritual disciplines more deeply in a separate article.
To be continued…
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
As Christians, each follower of Christ is not called to a lukewarm, mediocre walk with God. Instead, if we are to be the best version of ourselves, we are to pay close attention to just what it is Christ is calling us to be. At times, when we truly analyze the claim and responsibility placed on us by Jesus, we might think it anything but an easy yoke. This is especially true when we read between the lines of what Paul is telling us is several of his letters.
Taken singularly, it is easy to perhaps miss the magnitude of the goal of Christian spiritual formation. I think this is one of the reasons that many Christians so often become so complacent in their faith. Each week they get dressed, go to church, sing a few hymns, take part in corporate prayer, listen to a sermon that waters down the gospel message, put their envelope in the collection plate, then speed to their favorite eatery before the waiting line gets too long.
To tell you the truth, somehow I think Jesus and Paul had more than this in mind. What Jesus had in mind was spelled out with clarity in the Sermon on the Mount, sort of a compact distillation of the kingdom principles he brought with him when he left the glories of the heavenly court and came a'callin' on earth at that stable in Bethlehem. Let's have a closer look at Paul's take on what happened as a result of Christ's mission.
I am certain you are aware of Paul's idea, repeated in one way or another throughout his correspondence with the fledgling churches, of the relationship between Jesus and God. Paul tells us that all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell in Christ, which meant that God and Jesus were in some mysterious way the same being.
In the Jewish culture of his day, Paul was making an incredible claim here. Jews were not supposed to make any image of God and even to speak his name was considered a capital offense. Now, here was Paul echoing Jesus by implying that the great and mighty Jehovah was in essence a loving, cosmic "Daddy" who was not only the Father of Jesus, but was also Jesus himself. And the reverse was true. Jesus was not only a great teacher and a skilled Rabbi; He was not only a great healer and the leader, the Grand Poobah of a band of shady-looking disciples. Jesus, according to Paul, was Jehovah Himself.
Standing alone, that sort of statement was enough to give the High Priest a prize-winning wedgie. Paul, however, wasn't finished. In fact, he was just getting started. If you take a look at Ephesians 3:19, the Apostle tells the early church members that he prays "that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." (NSRV) Here Paul was pulling no punches; instead, he went straight for the knockout. Paul basically was saying that he prayed that, as Christians, the new believers were expected to become like Jesus.
No wonder the religious establishment saw Paul as a dangerous, if not demented, man. Equating Jesus with God was a reach. Saying that a human being could become like Jesus was beyond the pale of acceptability.
In case his readers missed his point, the Apostle repeats this theme in the fourth chapter of Ephesians. In verse 13 he equates Christian maturity with the achieving "the measure of the full stature of Christ." He then drives home the point two verses later by stating:
Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ" (Ephesians 4:15 NRSV).
In case you might be thinking that this message was somehow only for the believers in Ephesus, think again. Let's wander over to Corinth and take a look at one of Paul's letters to this stressed out church. After briefly covering a few topics, Paul tells the Corinthian believers that we "beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness" (2 Cor. 3:18). Aiming his words in a different direction, Paul tells the Philippians to emulate the same manner of being that Jesus had (Phi. 2:5-8).
By now it should be clear that that Paul felt it essential to get this message across. He believed that in order to function as effective Christ-followers in their world, the members of the early church had to work, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, in securing personal change and continually grow toward the full stature of Christ. This was the goal for the early church and it is our goal for today.
The logical question at this point is: How am I supposed to pull this off?
It is here that we are confronted with one of the many paradoxical conundrums of the spiritual life. The first shall be last - the last shall be first - to save your life you must lose it - etc. For the theme we are discussing, we are confronted with the riddle of Christian spiritual formation. There is nothing that we can do to save ourselves or sanctify ourselves; it is all a free gift of grace and we just have to accept it. Still, Paul tells us to "work out our salvation with fear and trembling."
So what gives here?
Some sincere believers will tell you to stay away from spiritual disciplines because they are, at the end of the day, useless. We are powerless to change ourselves; only the Holy Spirit can pull that one off. Some of these Christians will go so far as to tell you that engaging in the classical spiritual disciplines is like sleeping with Satan....all this spiritual formation mumbo jumbo smells like smoke and brimstone.
Other equally sincere Christians will tell you the opposite. Even though personal transformation is a free gift of grace, we have a responsibility as well. We have to place ourselves in a receptive position in order to maximize our potential for change. I confess that I am more in this camp than in the former. I believe that spiritual formation requires a good deal of effort on our parts. God makes it all possible, but we have to appropriate what he has made possible. It's like the great Quaker mystic Rufus Jones often said:
"The grace of God is like the wind blowing across the lake. If you want to get to the other side, you have to raise your sail."
I will discuss the spiritual disciplines more deeply in a separate article.
To be continued…
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
Thursday, December 4, 2008
You Are Never Disqualified For Service
L. Dwight Turner
One of the greatest gifts of God to each of us is the placing of a divine plan for our lives deep within us. God has his generalized plan for humanity and a personal plan or mission for each of us. You, me, the butcher, baker, and even the candlestick maker have a divine purpose scripted on our hearts by the Creator and it is a plan just for us. More incredible is the fact that God has equipped us to carry that plan out and in so doing, help establish his kingdom right here on earth and bring great glory to his being. What a wonder! What a blessing! What a responsibility!
It doesn’t matter who you are, where you have been, and what you have done. That divine purpose still exists inside you and with a little effort and a lot of faith, you can discover it. Start with prayer, asking God through the Holy Spirit to reveal his divine plan for your life. Be persistent in your asking; be vigilant in waiting for an answer; and be confident that the answer will come.
Also, keep in mind that it is never too late to get started on the dreams God has for you. God created you to accomplish extraordinary things and no matter how old you are, how sinful you have been, or whatever afflictions you may suffer from, God can and will use you because that is one of the primary purposes you were created in the first place. Listen as Jim Graff speaks clearly to this issue:
God uses ordinary people – with all their flaws and problems – to accomplish extraordinary dreams. You and I don’t have to wait until we have it all together, achieve a certain degree of fame, earn a specified amount of money, get a better job, or meet the right person. Instead, we can start today to embrace who we are and how God made us, knowing that he will use us. From this knowledge, wellsprings of confidence water our hearts. That confidence allows us to see our dreams and visions as God’s road maps to significant lives.
A significant life – that is what God created you for. Make a consecrated commitment right now to lead a life of excellence in cooperation and divine partnership with the Holy Spirit. The life of excellence is what Jesus demonstrated for us and it is that same kind of life to which each of us is called. Sure, we may foul up things from time to time, but God is right there with us offering a hand to pick us up, dust us off, and send us on our divinely appointed way.
As said earlier, it matters not where you have been. In fact, your past failures and problems may be part of your qualification for the task God has for you to perform. I worked for many years in the field of addiction prevention and treatment. The most effective professionals ministering to those suffering from addiction were those people who were former addicts themselves. It is this foundational philosophy upon which Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are built.
If you think your past sin(s) prevents you from carrying out your purpose for God, you have been lied to by the Master of Deceit himself. Satan would like nothing more than for you to continue walking around half-alive, depressed, despondent, and spiritually paralyzed. That’s why that little voice tells you time and time again that there is no way God will ever use you. Granted, he may use others but you, you’re a lost cause.
Listen my friend – God saved you and God will use you. The God Christians worship is not a God of wasted effort. God never does anything without a reason, a plan and a purpose. If you are saved, you are to be used. You are destined to be God’s instrument for something special. If you doubt what I am saying, go to Scripture and conduct a detailed study of Paul’s life.
Paul, formerly known as Saul, was there when Stephen was stoned to death. He even held the coats for the men who pelted the first Christian martyr. Saul was the most persistent and ardent persecutor of the early church. By the world’s way of reasoning, you would never expect that God would use Saul to spread the faith across the Mediterranean World. But that’s exactly what God did. God, thankfully, doesn’t necessarily think as the world thinks.
If God can use Paul, he can surely use you.
In China I knew a wonderful believer named Mr. Zhou (not his real name.) Now in his 60’s, Mr. Zhou was a successful businessman and used much of his income to support the efforts of the house churches in his Province and also to support young pastors in training. He also spent most of his free time training Chinese missionaries to live and work in Muslim countries. Mr. Zhou had many business interests in the Middle East and often used his stores for employing young Chinese missionaries.
What makes Mr. Zhou’s story so fascinating is how it is similar to that of Paul. Back in the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution Mr. Zhou was a young man and a leader in the Red Guards. His specialty, as he put it, was ferreting out Christians and torturing them. He often beat them horribly, put dunce caps on their heads and signs on their backs, and then marched them through the city streets while a gathering mob hurled insults, bricks, and bottles at them.
Later, when in his late 30’s, Mr. Zhou found Christ through the efforts of a pastor he had once tortured. Now Mr. Zhou does God’s work out of a sense of love and service. God used Paul and God used Mr. Zhou.
If God can use Mr. Zhou, He can use you.
Once you finally accept the fact that God can use you, wants to use you, and will use you, it is then time to get to work. Many times sincere believers put themselves in a holding pattern, waiting for specific directions from God as to what their ultimate purpose is. Yes, we do need to discern what our ultimate purpose is and with prayer and patience we will do just that. Yet in the meantime there is plenty that we can do. No matter where you live I am certain of one thing: there are people living there who are in need of something and who are suffering. More than likely there are already groups of Christian servants working to meet some of those needs. Find out about these groups and find a way to get involved. The real question is not so much what you should do. The real question once you know in your heart that God wants to use you as his compassionate servant to a hurting world is, “Are you available?”
Only you can answer that question.
Hopefully, you are, indeed, available. You are gifted for service my friend. And no matter what form that service may take, you can rest assured of one absolute certainty: the Holy Spirit will empower you not only proceed, but succeed. He will make sure you not only survive, you will thrive.
My primary purpose in writing this article is to encourage you to understand and accept the reality that God put a potential and purpose in you before you were born and, further, he still wants that purpose to be realized. Stop looking back at the past and instead, step forward into the service that God has for you. You cannot change the past but know this: whatever happened is history in God’s eyes and in God’s heart. As a Christian you have been forgiven so turn your eyes forward instead of keeping them riveted in your rear view mirror.
Do all that you can to let this truth sink deep into the depths of your heart: where you are going, what is in your future is far more important that what’s behind you. Scripture tells us that with God, all things are possible. So if it seems your dreams have died, let the Lord resurrect those dormant dreams and allow those dreams to drive you and motivate you to be all that you can be for the glory of God and the sake of others.
Our world is a hurting world and there are many areas of need. The dream God placed in your heart is designed to deal with one of those areas. More than anything, the church, the Body of Christ, needs compassionate people of noble character and a heart of service. That’s you, my friend.
© L. D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
One of the greatest gifts of God to each of us is the placing of a divine plan for our lives deep within us. God has his generalized plan for humanity and a personal plan or mission for each of us. You, me, the butcher, baker, and even the candlestick maker have a divine purpose scripted on our hearts by the Creator and it is a plan just for us. More incredible is the fact that God has equipped us to carry that plan out and in so doing, help establish his kingdom right here on earth and bring great glory to his being. What a wonder! What a blessing! What a responsibility!
It doesn’t matter who you are, where you have been, and what you have done. That divine purpose still exists inside you and with a little effort and a lot of faith, you can discover it. Start with prayer, asking God through the Holy Spirit to reveal his divine plan for your life. Be persistent in your asking; be vigilant in waiting for an answer; and be confident that the answer will come.
Also, keep in mind that it is never too late to get started on the dreams God has for you. God created you to accomplish extraordinary things and no matter how old you are, how sinful you have been, or whatever afflictions you may suffer from, God can and will use you because that is one of the primary purposes you were created in the first place. Listen as Jim Graff speaks clearly to this issue:
God uses ordinary people – with all their flaws and problems – to accomplish extraordinary dreams. You and I don’t have to wait until we have it all together, achieve a certain degree of fame, earn a specified amount of money, get a better job, or meet the right person. Instead, we can start today to embrace who we are and how God made us, knowing that he will use us. From this knowledge, wellsprings of confidence water our hearts. That confidence allows us to see our dreams and visions as God’s road maps to significant lives.
A significant life – that is what God created you for. Make a consecrated commitment right now to lead a life of excellence in cooperation and divine partnership with the Holy Spirit. The life of excellence is what Jesus demonstrated for us and it is that same kind of life to which each of us is called. Sure, we may foul up things from time to time, but God is right there with us offering a hand to pick us up, dust us off, and send us on our divinely appointed way.
As said earlier, it matters not where you have been. In fact, your past failures and problems may be part of your qualification for the task God has for you to perform. I worked for many years in the field of addiction prevention and treatment. The most effective professionals ministering to those suffering from addiction were those people who were former addicts themselves. It is this foundational philosophy upon which Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous are built.
If you think your past sin(s) prevents you from carrying out your purpose for God, you have been lied to by the Master of Deceit himself. Satan would like nothing more than for you to continue walking around half-alive, depressed, despondent, and spiritually paralyzed. That’s why that little voice tells you time and time again that there is no way God will ever use you. Granted, he may use others but you, you’re a lost cause.
Listen my friend – God saved you and God will use you. The God Christians worship is not a God of wasted effort. God never does anything without a reason, a plan and a purpose. If you are saved, you are to be used. You are destined to be God’s instrument for something special. If you doubt what I am saying, go to Scripture and conduct a detailed study of Paul’s life.
Paul, formerly known as Saul, was there when Stephen was stoned to death. He even held the coats for the men who pelted the first Christian martyr. Saul was the most persistent and ardent persecutor of the early church. By the world’s way of reasoning, you would never expect that God would use Saul to spread the faith across the Mediterranean World. But that’s exactly what God did. God, thankfully, doesn’t necessarily think as the world thinks.
If God can use Paul, he can surely use you.
In China I knew a wonderful believer named Mr. Zhou (not his real name.) Now in his 60’s, Mr. Zhou was a successful businessman and used much of his income to support the efforts of the house churches in his Province and also to support young pastors in training. He also spent most of his free time training Chinese missionaries to live and work in Muslim countries. Mr. Zhou had many business interests in the Middle East and often used his stores for employing young Chinese missionaries.
What makes Mr. Zhou’s story so fascinating is how it is similar to that of Paul. Back in the chaotic years of the Cultural Revolution Mr. Zhou was a young man and a leader in the Red Guards. His specialty, as he put it, was ferreting out Christians and torturing them. He often beat them horribly, put dunce caps on their heads and signs on their backs, and then marched them through the city streets while a gathering mob hurled insults, bricks, and bottles at them.
Later, when in his late 30’s, Mr. Zhou found Christ through the efforts of a pastor he had once tortured. Now Mr. Zhou does God’s work out of a sense of love and service. God used Paul and God used Mr. Zhou.
If God can use Mr. Zhou, He can use you.
Once you finally accept the fact that God can use you, wants to use you, and will use you, it is then time to get to work. Many times sincere believers put themselves in a holding pattern, waiting for specific directions from God as to what their ultimate purpose is. Yes, we do need to discern what our ultimate purpose is and with prayer and patience we will do just that. Yet in the meantime there is plenty that we can do. No matter where you live I am certain of one thing: there are people living there who are in need of something and who are suffering. More than likely there are already groups of Christian servants working to meet some of those needs. Find out about these groups and find a way to get involved. The real question is not so much what you should do. The real question once you know in your heart that God wants to use you as his compassionate servant to a hurting world is, “Are you available?”
Only you can answer that question.
Hopefully, you are, indeed, available. You are gifted for service my friend. And no matter what form that service may take, you can rest assured of one absolute certainty: the Holy Spirit will empower you not only proceed, but succeed. He will make sure you not only survive, you will thrive.
My primary purpose in writing this article is to encourage you to understand and accept the reality that God put a potential and purpose in you before you were born and, further, he still wants that purpose to be realized. Stop looking back at the past and instead, step forward into the service that God has for you. You cannot change the past but know this: whatever happened is history in God’s eyes and in God’s heart. As a Christian you have been forgiven so turn your eyes forward instead of keeping them riveted in your rear view mirror.
Do all that you can to let this truth sink deep into the depths of your heart: where you are going, what is in your future is far more important that what’s behind you. Scripture tells us that with God, all things are possible. So if it seems your dreams have died, let the Lord resurrect those dormant dreams and allow those dreams to drive you and motivate you to be all that you can be for the glory of God and the sake of others.
Our world is a hurting world and there are many areas of need. The dream God placed in your heart is designed to deal with one of those areas. More than anything, the church, the Body of Christ, needs compassionate people of noble character and a heart of service. That’s you, my friend.
© L. D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A Franciscan Benediction
L. Dwight Turner
I felt led by the Spirit this morning to share with you this "Franciscan Benediction," quoted by Phillip Yancey in his book, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? When I find that I drift for days or sometimes weeks without paying attention to Christ's call for us to be compassionate citizens of his Kingdom, I often go back to this prayer, just as a reminder. We are called to be the hands, feet, and especially the embrace of Jesus in our hurting world. This benediction speaks to this reality.
May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen
I don't know about you, but I rarely think to pray for things like discomfort, anger, tears, and foolishness. Yet this sublime prayer truly captures the compassionate heart of Jesus, feeling the pain and suffering of the world and responding to it with healing love. The words of this benediction remind me so much of the scripture read by Jesus in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth and recorded in Luke 4:18-19:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see,
That the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come.
I think there is no need to wax eloquent here, nor is there a reason to belabor the point. Jesus' message was crystal clear and so are the words of the Franciscan benediction. Permit me, however, to share one more highly relevant passage of scripture from Isaiah. These verses, Isaiah 58:6-12 speak to the same theme and to the same calling; a calling that goes forth to each of us who claim the title "Christian."
...this is the kind of fasting that I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them and do not hide from relatives who need your help.
Then your salvation will come like the dawn and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
Then when you call, the Lord will answer. "Yes, I am here," he will quickly reply.
Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!
Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.
The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength.
You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever flowing spring.
Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. You will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.
The words of this passage hold a special significance for me. Space in this article does not give me room to tell the whole story. Suffice to say that, in 1996, I had major cardiac surgery and an extended period of recovery. While still in the hospital after the operation, these words seemed to leap off the page at me. Over the next few months I prayed for God to reveal to me what he wanted me to do. I vowed that, since I had been given extended life, I would dedicate it to his service. Although I would have never predicted it, I ended up on the mission field in China, where I remained for over five years. These years were, without reservation, the most rewarding years of my life.
I have been home now for five years and God has continued to guide me into areas of service where I can be of use. Further, he has surprised me in some very significant ways, including, in 2004, the birth of my wonderful daughter, Salina. She was both a gift and a miracle. I suppose I should also mention that, at the time of her birth, I was 55-years-old. As I said, the Lord is full of surprises.
I didn't mean to digress, but my point here is that, as Christians, we are to serve God through selfless service to others. Just as Jesus set us an example by washing his disciples’ feet, we have to get our hands dirty as well. But there is a wonderful promise in this. Our wounds, and we all have them, will quickly heal. Further, our light will shine out from us and God will continually guide us.
I know from my own life experience, my testimony if you will, these words ring loudly with truth. If possible, and it probably is, spend some time this week reflecting on the words from this Franciscan benediction, as well as the passage from Luke and the one from Isaiah. Pray about these words and these principles, and wait for God to make his move. A word of caution: Don't be surprised if you are ambushed by the Spirit. I have found that he is a sublime master of the unexpected.
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
I felt led by the Spirit this morning to share with you this "Franciscan Benediction," quoted by Phillip Yancey in his book, Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? When I find that I drift for days or sometimes weeks without paying attention to Christ's call for us to be compassionate citizens of his Kingdom, I often go back to this prayer, just as a reminder. We are called to be the hands, feet, and especially the embrace of Jesus in our hurting world. This benediction speaks to this reality.
May God bless you with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that you may live deep within your heart.
May God bless you with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,
So that you may work for justice, freedom, and peace.
May God bless you with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,
So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.
And may God bless you with enough foolishness
To believe that you can make a difference in the world,
So that you can do what others claim cannot be done
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.
Amen
I don't know about you, but I rarely think to pray for things like discomfort, anger, tears, and foolishness. Yet this sublime prayer truly captures the compassionate heart of Jesus, feeling the pain and suffering of the world and responding to it with healing love. The words of this benediction remind me so much of the scripture read by Jesus in his hometown synagogue in Nazareth and recorded in Luke 4:18-19:
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me, for the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see,
That the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come.
I think there is no need to wax eloquent here, nor is there a reason to belabor the point. Jesus' message was crystal clear and so are the words of the Franciscan benediction. Permit me, however, to share one more highly relevant passage of scripture from Isaiah. These verses, Isaiah 58:6-12 speak to the same theme and to the same calling; a calling that goes forth to each of us who claim the title "Christian."
...this is the kind of fasting that I want:
Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you.
Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people. Share your food with the hungry and give shelter to the homeless.
Give clothes to those who need them and do not hide from relatives who need your help.
Then your salvation will come like the dawn and your wounds will quickly heal. Your godliness will lead you forward and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.
Then when you call, the Lord will answer. "Yes, I am here," he will quickly reply.
Remove the heavy yoke of oppression. Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!
Feed the hungry and help those in trouble. Then your light will shine out from the darkness, and the darkness around you will be as bright as noon.
The Lord will guide you continually, giving you water when you are dry and restoring your strength.
You will be like a well-watered garden, like an ever flowing spring.
Some of you will rebuild the deserted ruins of your cities. You will be known as a rebuilder of walls and a restorer of homes.
The words of this passage hold a special significance for me. Space in this article does not give me room to tell the whole story. Suffice to say that, in 1996, I had major cardiac surgery and an extended period of recovery. While still in the hospital after the operation, these words seemed to leap off the page at me. Over the next few months I prayed for God to reveal to me what he wanted me to do. I vowed that, since I had been given extended life, I would dedicate it to his service. Although I would have never predicted it, I ended up on the mission field in China, where I remained for over five years. These years were, without reservation, the most rewarding years of my life.
I have been home now for five years and God has continued to guide me into areas of service where I can be of use. Further, he has surprised me in some very significant ways, including, in 2004, the birth of my wonderful daughter, Salina. She was both a gift and a miracle. I suppose I should also mention that, at the time of her birth, I was 55-years-old. As I said, the Lord is full of surprises.
I didn't mean to digress, but my point here is that, as Christians, we are to serve God through selfless service to others. Just as Jesus set us an example by washing his disciples’ feet, we have to get our hands dirty as well. But there is a wonderful promise in this. Our wounds, and we all have them, will quickly heal. Further, our light will shine out from us and God will continually guide us.
I know from my own life experience, my testimony if you will, these words ring loudly with truth. If possible, and it probably is, spend some time this week reflecting on the words from this Franciscan benediction, as well as the passage from Luke and the one from Isaiah. Pray about these words and these principles, and wait for God to make his move. A word of caution: Don't be surprised if you are ambushed by the Spirit. I have found that he is a sublime master of the unexpected.
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
Lazarus Come Forth!
L. Dwight Turner
As the new century begins to unfold, we often hear many so-called and often self-proclaimed “experts” on culture and religion predicting the extinction of Christianity. If one listens closely to these pundits, it would seem the faith is already in its death throes, gasping vainly for its final breath. Are these doomsday prophets correct? Is the ancient and once-vibrant church universal on the cusp of being relegated to the dust bin of sociological irrelevance?
The answer is clear: Yes and no.
If one is speaking of the Church in its traditional form and structure, securely anchored to its dated and increasingly ineffective methodology of encountering the world, then the answer is a resounding yes. The Church of yesterday is rapidly becoming just that – the Church of yesterday. Stubbornly clinging to a Jurassic vision of its mission, function, and structure, the traditional church is incapable of successfully navigating the shifting shoals of the post-modern world. To make matters worse, people outside the Church have an increasingly negative view of Christianity in general and Christians in particular.
There can be little doubt that we are living not only in the post-modern age, but the post-Christian age as well. Some of our more cocooned brothers and sisters may be in denial of this fact, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is true. And now hear this, things are not going to go back to the good old days. As the old saying goes, once it’s a pickle, it ain’t gonna be a cucumber ever again. Don’t just take my word for it, take heed of these statistics, culled from the research of several prominent church historians and sociologists, as well as renowned researcher George Barna.
Historians postulate it took from the beginning of the church to the year 1900 for followers of Jesus to make up 2.5 percent of the world population. In the seventy years beyond that, it more than doubled. By 1970, the number of committed believers in the world expanded to over 6 percent. From 1970 to 1992 the number doubled again. So right now, in the world it is something like 12 or 13 percent. These are flowers of Jesus Christ, people who say, “I am born again.” Here’s what’s really interesting. Seventy percent of this growth happened in the last fifteen years. All of that sounds pretty good, Turner, so why are you waving all these red flags in our faces? Well, here’s why:
Seventy percent of that growth is happening outside the United States.
The trends on our shores are just the opposite. In America today, over 85 percent of the churches are stagnant or dying. And while the appearance is there is an abundance of churches, the truth is most are nearly empty buildings with an average attendance of fewer than seventy-five. Every week more churches close their doors. Even in Nashville, the buckle of the Bible Belt and home to numerous large para-church ministries, churches are being turned into storage buildings, office complexes, and strip joints. Some downtown churches are more famous for the architecture than for the person and purpose they were built to glorify.
“America is fast becoming the land of empty church buildings and hollow religion,” said David Foster, founding pastor of one of Nashville’s largest congregations. “Out of 450,000 Protestant churches, we lost fifty thousand churches in the ‘90’s. I heard a denominational leader say recently roughly 5,000 ministers are leaving the ministry every month. These are obscene and sobering numbers.”
Not such a pretty picture, is it? I live in the heart of the Bible Belt, where people still go to church in large numbers and Christianity remains a strong force in the cultural mix. We have no real shortage of churches and, except for several crisis-driven denominations, few churches are actually closing their doors. Still, the trend of declining numbers is more apparent in the larger cities in the Bible Belt, like Nashville, Memphis, and Atlanta. In other parts of the country, entire denominations seem to have on foot in the morgue and the other on a banana peel.
Denominational leaders and church leaders tend to react in one of four basic ways: outright denial; panic-fueled tail chasing, like a dog running in circles; blaming everyone but themselves; or trying to find new, creative ways to fix the mess. Only Number Four has the proverbial snowball’s chance.
A significant section of the Body of Christ has arisen, showing not only signs of life, but also a freshness of vision, a flexibility of methodology, and a contagious optimism. Often referred to as the “Emerging Church”, this proactive, mission-driven force in the Church is proving that the demise of the Christian faith is, to echo Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated.
In my mind’s eye, I often see Christ standing before the fetid tomb of Mary and Martha’s brother. With a calm, reassuring voice, Jesus spoke:
Lazarus, come forth!
Some of those assembled there initially expressed concern:
But Lord, he has been dead four days. He stinketh.
In spite of the odor, Jesus called his friend back to life and Lazarus responded. Still wrapped in his burial cloths, the once-dead man now walked with new life. As the vision progresses, it is no longer Lazarus who I see resurrected at the Lord’s call, but the contemporary Church. Particularly, I see the revitalization and renewal of the old Mainline denominations, so rich in tradition and resources. These denominations have experienced the greatest loss in terms of numbers and influence, yet it is these very segments of the Church that have the most to offer.
As the Body of Christ finds its way in our post-modern, post-Christian culture, I believe we will see major chances in the way the Church goes about its business. In addition to shifts in organizational structure and a reduced role of the ordained clergy, the churches that survive will be the ones that are innovative, transformative, and incarnational.
If the Church is to reach the growing post-Christian culture in ways that are relevant and effective, several things must be seen with clarity and focus. First, the primary question that must be answered is not, “How can we evangelize these people?” Instead, the relevant question must be, “How can I help you?” It is through this sort of proactive Christian service that the Church’s evangelistic witness can be best fostered. Secondly, the Church must reconsider how it can best present the truths of the faith in new wineskins that are more appropriate than the 19th Century model that is commonly used even today. We must re-introduce people to God, to Christ, to the Scriptures, and to the Church and this must be done in ways that are both practical and palatable, given the parameters of the environment in which the Church is now operating.
One salient and ubiquitous feature of 21st Century America centers on the increased interest in all things spiritual. Increasingly, people are seeking spiritual experience, not just dogma, doctrine, and didactics. Many Americans find themselves encountering the reality that something important is missing from their lives and they are quite active in their search for an answer. It is here that the Church has consistently fallen short of the mark.
Protestant Christianity in particular has long been suspicious, even paranoid, regarding spiritual disciplines and spiritual experience. As a result, the Church as we know it has been narrowly focused on belief and doctrine, ignoring the experiential, subjective side of an individual’s walk of faith. Discipleship programs have traditionally been focused on regimented Bible study and the central aspect of the overwhelming majority of Protestant worship services is the pastor’s sermon. Is it any wonder that many churches see dwindling numbers? The spiritual seeker of today finds the typical church service and discipleship program as unsatisfying and irrelevant. As a result, they turn elsewhere. Spiritual paths such as Buddhism, Yoga, Wicca, and many self-help programs are flourishing, primarily because they are more likely to address the needs of today’s spiritual seeker.
Connected with this lack of deep discipleship on the part of the Church is a general lack of transformative experience among the faithful. According to the majority of sociological and spiritual research done by Gallup, as well as George Barna, the typical believer is not significantly different than the non-believer in terms of worldview. Our pews are filled with sincere people who are, in the words of Thoreau, living lives of quiet desperation. This unfortunate reality accounts for the fact that a tour of any Christian book store will reveal a plethora of books with dust jackets that claim the book will, “change your life.”
Why do so many Christian experience such a desperate quality of life and seek something life-changing? Precisely because the Church has not provided a consistent means for spiritual growth and fulfillment. Let’s get real about this. A few praise songs, a couple of corporate prayers, a didactic Sunday School lesson, and a sermon just doesn’t cut it. If the Church is to thrive in the context of the current culture, it must be transformative.
Finally, the Body of Christ must develop innovative methods of giving flesh to its primary mission: incarnating Christ. The new Church must be mission-driven and willing to get its hands dirty. I believe the 21st Century churches that thrive will increasingly be those that arise out of the culture where a need exists. These types of congregations will be largely unconventional in terms of make up and methodology. Numerous examples already exist and can serve as models upon which new, innovative churches can be built. Congregations like “Mosaic” in Los Angeles, “Solomon’s Porch” in Minneapolis, and “The Rock” in Huntsville, Alabama are but three among many examples to build upon. These churches are thriving because they encounter the surrounding culture and grow within the context of that culture.
If the Body of Christ can incorporate progressive innovation, transformation, and incarnation into its calling and its mission, the consistent answer to the naysayers who are blowing Taps on Christianity will be a resounding, “No!”
The Church faces major challenges as it learns to live within a cultural context in which it finds itself increasingly marginalized. We can either put our heads in the sand and pretend the storm isn’t on the horizon, or, we can come up with creative new wineskins to fulfill our commission being salt and light in our world. Realistically, we can assume some churches will do well, while others will become flavorless seasoning and blown out light bulbs. Some will become, in the words of Paul, a pleasant aroma to the nostrils; while others, unfortunately, will stinketh.
How individual churches choose to respond to the realities of the situation will determine whether they will die, survive, or thrive.
As the new century begins to unfold, we often hear many so-called and often self-proclaimed “experts” on culture and religion predicting the extinction of Christianity. If one listens closely to these pundits, it would seem the faith is already in its death throes, gasping vainly for its final breath. Are these doomsday prophets correct? Is the ancient and once-vibrant church universal on the cusp of being relegated to the dust bin of sociological irrelevance?
The answer is clear: Yes and no.
If one is speaking of the Church in its traditional form and structure, securely anchored to its dated and increasingly ineffective methodology of encountering the world, then the answer is a resounding yes. The Church of yesterday is rapidly becoming just that – the Church of yesterday. Stubbornly clinging to a Jurassic vision of its mission, function, and structure, the traditional church is incapable of successfully navigating the shifting shoals of the post-modern world. To make matters worse, people outside the Church have an increasingly negative view of Christianity in general and Christians in particular.
There can be little doubt that we are living not only in the post-modern age, but the post-Christian age as well. Some of our more cocooned brothers and sisters may be in denial of this fact, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is true. And now hear this, things are not going to go back to the good old days. As the old saying goes, once it’s a pickle, it ain’t gonna be a cucumber ever again. Don’t just take my word for it, take heed of these statistics, culled from the research of several prominent church historians and sociologists, as well as renowned researcher George Barna.
Historians postulate it took from the beginning of the church to the year 1900 for followers of Jesus to make up 2.5 percent of the world population. In the seventy years beyond that, it more than doubled. By 1970, the number of committed believers in the world expanded to over 6 percent. From 1970 to 1992 the number doubled again. So right now, in the world it is something like 12 or 13 percent. These are flowers of Jesus Christ, people who say, “I am born again.” Here’s what’s really interesting. Seventy percent of this growth happened in the last fifteen years. All of that sounds pretty good, Turner, so why are you waving all these red flags in our faces? Well, here’s why:
Seventy percent of that growth is happening outside the United States.
The trends on our shores are just the opposite. In America today, over 85 percent of the churches are stagnant or dying. And while the appearance is there is an abundance of churches, the truth is most are nearly empty buildings with an average attendance of fewer than seventy-five. Every week more churches close their doors. Even in Nashville, the buckle of the Bible Belt and home to numerous large para-church ministries, churches are being turned into storage buildings, office complexes, and strip joints. Some downtown churches are more famous for the architecture than for the person and purpose they were built to glorify.
“America is fast becoming the land of empty church buildings and hollow religion,” said David Foster, founding pastor of one of Nashville’s largest congregations. “Out of 450,000 Protestant churches, we lost fifty thousand churches in the ‘90’s. I heard a denominational leader say recently roughly 5,000 ministers are leaving the ministry every month. These are obscene and sobering numbers.”
Not such a pretty picture, is it? I live in the heart of the Bible Belt, where people still go to church in large numbers and Christianity remains a strong force in the cultural mix. We have no real shortage of churches and, except for several crisis-driven denominations, few churches are actually closing their doors. Still, the trend of declining numbers is more apparent in the larger cities in the Bible Belt, like Nashville, Memphis, and Atlanta. In other parts of the country, entire denominations seem to have on foot in the morgue and the other on a banana peel.
Denominational leaders and church leaders tend to react in one of four basic ways: outright denial; panic-fueled tail chasing, like a dog running in circles; blaming everyone but themselves; or trying to find new, creative ways to fix the mess. Only Number Four has the proverbial snowball’s chance.
A significant section of the Body of Christ has arisen, showing not only signs of life, but also a freshness of vision, a flexibility of methodology, and a contagious optimism. Often referred to as the “Emerging Church”, this proactive, mission-driven force in the Church is proving that the demise of the Christian faith is, to echo Mark Twain, greatly exaggerated.
In my mind’s eye, I often see Christ standing before the fetid tomb of Mary and Martha’s brother. With a calm, reassuring voice, Jesus spoke:
Lazarus, come forth!
Some of those assembled there initially expressed concern:
But Lord, he has been dead four days. He stinketh.
In spite of the odor, Jesus called his friend back to life and Lazarus responded. Still wrapped in his burial cloths, the once-dead man now walked with new life. As the vision progresses, it is no longer Lazarus who I see resurrected at the Lord’s call, but the contemporary Church. Particularly, I see the revitalization and renewal of the old Mainline denominations, so rich in tradition and resources. These denominations have experienced the greatest loss in terms of numbers and influence, yet it is these very segments of the Church that have the most to offer.
As the Body of Christ finds its way in our post-modern, post-Christian culture, I believe we will see major chances in the way the Church goes about its business. In addition to shifts in organizational structure and a reduced role of the ordained clergy, the churches that survive will be the ones that are innovative, transformative, and incarnational.
If the Church is to reach the growing post-Christian culture in ways that are relevant and effective, several things must be seen with clarity and focus. First, the primary question that must be answered is not, “How can we evangelize these people?” Instead, the relevant question must be, “How can I help you?” It is through this sort of proactive Christian service that the Church’s evangelistic witness can be best fostered. Secondly, the Church must reconsider how it can best present the truths of the faith in new wineskins that are more appropriate than the 19th Century model that is commonly used even today. We must re-introduce people to God, to Christ, to the Scriptures, and to the Church and this must be done in ways that are both practical and palatable, given the parameters of the environment in which the Church is now operating.
One salient and ubiquitous feature of 21st Century America centers on the increased interest in all things spiritual. Increasingly, people are seeking spiritual experience, not just dogma, doctrine, and didactics. Many Americans find themselves encountering the reality that something important is missing from their lives and they are quite active in their search for an answer. It is here that the Church has consistently fallen short of the mark.
Protestant Christianity in particular has long been suspicious, even paranoid, regarding spiritual disciplines and spiritual experience. As a result, the Church as we know it has been narrowly focused on belief and doctrine, ignoring the experiential, subjective side of an individual’s walk of faith. Discipleship programs have traditionally been focused on regimented Bible study and the central aspect of the overwhelming majority of Protestant worship services is the pastor’s sermon. Is it any wonder that many churches see dwindling numbers? The spiritual seeker of today finds the typical church service and discipleship program as unsatisfying and irrelevant. As a result, they turn elsewhere. Spiritual paths such as Buddhism, Yoga, Wicca, and many self-help programs are flourishing, primarily because they are more likely to address the needs of today’s spiritual seeker.
Connected with this lack of deep discipleship on the part of the Church is a general lack of transformative experience among the faithful. According to the majority of sociological and spiritual research done by Gallup, as well as George Barna, the typical believer is not significantly different than the non-believer in terms of worldview. Our pews are filled with sincere people who are, in the words of Thoreau, living lives of quiet desperation. This unfortunate reality accounts for the fact that a tour of any Christian book store will reveal a plethora of books with dust jackets that claim the book will, “change your life.”
Why do so many Christian experience such a desperate quality of life and seek something life-changing? Precisely because the Church has not provided a consistent means for spiritual growth and fulfillment. Let’s get real about this. A few praise songs, a couple of corporate prayers, a didactic Sunday School lesson, and a sermon just doesn’t cut it. If the Church is to thrive in the context of the current culture, it must be transformative.
Finally, the Body of Christ must develop innovative methods of giving flesh to its primary mission: incarnating Christ. The new Church must be mission-driven and willing to get its hands dirty. I believe the 21st Century churches that thrive will increasingly be those that arise out of the culture where a need exists. These types of congregations will be largely unconventional in terms of make up and methodology. Numerous examples already exist and can serve as models upon which new, innovative churches can be built. Congregations like “Mosaic” in Los Angeles, “Solomon’s Porch” in Minneapolis, and “The Rock” in Huntsville, Alabama are but three among many examples to build upon. These churches are thriving because they encounter the surrounding culture and grow within the context of that culture.
If the Body of Christ can incorporate progressive innovation, transformation, and incarnation into its calling and its mission, the consistent answer to the naysayers who are blowing Taps on Christianity will be a resounding, “No!”
The Church faces major challenges as it learns to live within a cultural context in which it finds itself increasingly marginalized. We can either put our heads in the sand and pretend the storm isn’t on the horizon, or, we can come up with creative new wineskins to fulfill our commission being salt and light in our world. Realistically, we can assume some churches will do well, while others will become flavorless seasoning and blown out light bulbs. Some will become, in the words of Paul, a pleasant aroma to the nostrils; while others, unfortunately, will stinketh.
How individual churches choose to respond to the realities of the situation will determine whether they will die, survive, or thrive.
The Blessings of the Ascension
L. Dwight Turner
During my formative years growing up in the church as well as my adult years attending church, I don’t recall ever hearing a sermon on Christ’s ascension. I heard countless words about the Lord’s crucifixion, salvation by the blood, and more than a few bombastic diatribes on the evils of sin. I even heard a few sermons on the Resurrection, mostly centered on the importance of the empty tomb and the fact that Christ defeated both death and the Devil. And, of course, there have been countless talks about the Nativity.
Not once, however, did I hear anything about the Ascension. Not one time!
Left to my own devices, I would have most likely never noticed this empty space in the biblical teaching that has come my way over the years. It is only because I am a book addict that I per chance (or maybe by design) discovered that a big hole existed in my celebration of the life of Jesus. I really have no one to blame for this reality except myself. I can’t blame the pastors and preachers I have heard during my life; chances are, they never heard a sermon on Christ’s journey back to heaven and subsequent seating at the right hand of the Father. Like I said, it is only through my habit of voracious reading that I happened upon this issue at all. Now, you’ll have to bear with me because I feel compelled to tell you about it.
Of course, you could just click this page shut and be done with it. I hope, however, you won’t do that. Instead, even if you don’t appreciate me as a writer, at least consider that I might say one thing of value in the time it takes to scroll down the page.
Gary Thomas is one of my favorite authors. Several of his books have been meaningful in my life, most notably Sacred Marriage and Sacred Parenting. The latter, in fact, has been of immense relevance in my life over the past few years. God, in his infinite wisdom and with what I consider his trademark sense of humor, gave me the surprise of my life in 2004. In August, 2003 we discovered that my wife was pregnant. She gave birth to our wonderful little girl, Salina Li, in May, 2004. What makes this event special is the fact that when Salina was born, I was 55-years-old.
Like I said, He does have a sense of humor.
I had planned to drift casually into my golden years devoting my time to my church and to my writing. Parenting was not in the cards, nor was it for Li, my wife. Salina was God’s gift to us and, although she was not in our plans, she was in God’s plans. That’s why I never use the term “unplanned pregnancy.” Although I am not a fanatical pro-lifer, I am pro-life. In my eyes, pregnancy is never unplanned; it is always God-planned. Li and I never considered abortion. Salina has been a blessed addition to our family and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
I apologize for that little digression, but this is a blog. Back to the point, Gary Thomas’ book on parenting has also been a gift to both Li and myself. We have learned much from its pages, particularly how God uses parenting as a way for us to overcome our inbred tendency toward selfishness.
A few months back I purchased Thomas’ most recent book, entitled, The Beautiful Fight. In this book, the author discusses the fact that we have often overlooked the eternal significance of Christ’s ascension and we have done this to our detriment. Reading Thomas’ book gave me pause to reflect on this theme in some detail, to pray about it, and now, to begin to write about it.
After reading the book I came to several pertinent realizations regarding the Ascension. First, by celebrating the event of Christ’s journey back to the spiritual world, we are honoring the fact that, because of the success of Jesus’ mission, we are all now operating under a new set of circumstances. Have you ever really reflected on that?
Christ told his disciples that he was going away and that his departure was necessary. Jesus said flatly, “Unless I go, the Advocate (comforter, counselor) won’t come. If I do go away, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7). If Christ had not returned to his home, the Holy Spirit would have never arrived to live inside of us. The implications of this are obvious. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit along side us and within us, we could never hope to attain to what Paul calls “the fullness of Christ.” Put in stark but realistic terms, we would never be able to live as committed Christians.
A second significant issue surrounding the Ascension has to do with Christ’s reign and his kingdom. Scripture teaches us that Christ not only will rule when he comes again some day, he is ruling right now. This doesn’t mean that Satan is not roaming around, as Peter says, like a roaring lion. What it does mean, however, is that he has been defanged. Granted, Satan may get hold of you, but the best he can do is gum you to death. If Christ did not occupy his honored seat in the spiritual world, Satan would be a more formidable enemy than he now is.
Finally, Christ’s ascension gives us something none of us could live without. The Ascension gives us hope! And one further truth – no longer do we really need to ask, “What would Jesus do?” With the Ascension, as Thomas points out, a more appropriate question is: “What is Jesus doing right now?”
Take just a few minutes and think about these realities. Do you now see the blessings associated with the Ascension?
Allow me to close with a quotation from The Beautiful Fight that speaks directly to the themes discussed above:
Celebrating Christmas gives us faith; it affirms that our beliefs have roots in the historical fact of the incarnation. Celebrating Easter gives us assurance; it affirms that Christ wiped away our sin by his great sacrifice and triumphed over death. Celebrating the ascension gives us hope and points us toward transformation; it affirms that we can become more and more like Jesus is right now….Without the ascension, we might look around and forget that Christ is the ruling Lord of this fallen, broken world….not just that he will reign when he comes again or that he did reign over death, but that he is reigning right now.
• Throughout the article, I have capitalized the word Ascension when it refers to the specific event in Christ’s mission. I do so because I firmly feel that this event deserves the same honor as Christmas and Easter.
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
During my formative years growing up in the church as well as my adult years attending church, I don’t recall ever hearing a sermon on Christ’s ascension. I heard countless words about the Lord’s crucifixion, salvation by the blood, and more than a few bombastic diatribes on the evils of sin. I even heard a few sermons on the Resurrection, mostly centered on the importance of the empty tomb and the fact that Christ defeated both death and the Devil. And, of course, there have been countless talks about the Nativity.
Not once, however, did I hear anything about the Ascension. Not one time!
Left to my own devices, I would have most likely never noticed this empty space in the biblical teaching that has come my way over the years. It is only because I am a book addict that I per chance (or maybe by design) discovered that a big hole existed in my celebration of the life of Jesus. I really have no one to blame for this reality except myself. I can’t blame the pastors and preachers I have heard during my life; chances are, they never heard a sermon on Christ’s journey back to heaven and subsequent seating at the right hand of the Father. Like I said, it is only through my habit of voracious reading that I happened upon this issue at all. Now, you’ll have to bear with me because I feel compelled to tell you about it.
Of course, you could just click this page shut and be done with it. I hope, however, you won’t do that. Instead, even if you don’t appreciate me as a writer, at least consider that I might say one thing of value in the time it takes to scroll down the page.
Gary Thomas is one of my favorite authors. Several of his books have been meaningful in my life, most notably Sacred Marriage and Sacred Parenting. The latter, in fact, has been of immense relevance in my life over the past few years. God, in his infinite wisdom and with what I consider his trademark sense of humor, gave me the surprise of my life in 2004. In August, 2003 we discovered that my wife was pregnant. She gave birth to our wonderful little girl, Salina Li, in May, 2004. What makes this event special is the fact that when Salina was born, I was 55-years-old.
Like I said, He does have a sense of humor.
I had planned to drift casually into my golden years devoting my time to my church and to my writing. Parenting was not in the cards, nor was it for Li, my wife. Salina was God’s gift to us and, although she was not in our plans, she was in God’s plans. That’s why I never use the term “unplanned pregnancy.” Although I am not a fanatical pro-lifer, I am pro-life. In my eyes, pregnancy is never unplanned; it is always God-planned. Li and I never considered abortion. Salina has been a blessed addition to our family and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
I apologize for that little digression, but this is a blog. Back to the point, Gary Thomas’ book on parenting has also been a gift to both Li and myself. We have learned much from its pages, particularly how God uses parenting as a way for us to overcome our inbred tendency toward selfishness.
A few months back I purchased Thomas’ most recent book, entitled, The Beautiful Fight. In this book, the author discusses the fact that we have often overlooked the eternal significance of Christ’s ascension and we have done this to our detriment. Reading Thomas’ book gave me pause to reflect on this theme in some detail, to pray about it, and now, to begin to write about it.
After reading the book I came to several pertinent realizations regarding the Ascension. First, by celebrating the event of Christ’s journey back to the spiritual world, we are honoring the fact that, because of the success of Jesus’ mission, we are all now operating under a new set of circumstances. Have you ever really reflected on that?
Christ told his disciples that he was going away and that his departure was necessary. Jesus said flatly, “Unless I go, the Advocate (comforter, counselor) won’t come. If I do go away, I will send him to you.” (John 16:7). If Christ had not returned to his home, the Holy Spirit would have never arrived to live inside of us. The implications of this are obvious. Without the presence of the Holy Spirit along side us and within us, we could never hope to attain to what Paul calls “the fullness of Christ.” Put in stark but realistic terms, we would never be able to live as committed Christians.
A second significant issue surrounding the Ascension has to do with Christ’s reign and his kingdom. Scripture teaches us that Christ not only will rule when he comes again some day, he is ruling right now. This doesn’t mean that Satan is not roaming around, as Peter says, like a roaring lion. What it does mean, however, is that he has been defanged. Granted, Satan may get hold of you, but the best he can do is gum you to death. If Christ did not occupy his honored seat in the spiritual world, Satan would be a more formidable enemy than he now is.
Finally, Christ’s ascension gives us something none of us could live without. The Ascension gives us hope! And one further truth – no longer do we really need to ask, “What would Jesus do?” With the Ascension, as Thomas points out, a more appropriate question is: “What is Jesus doing right now?”
Take just a few minutes and think about these realities. Do you now see the blessings associated with the Ascension?
Allow me to close with a quotation from The Beautiful Fight that speaks directly to the themes discussed above:
Celebrating Christmas gives us faith; it affirms that our beliefs have roots in the historical fact of the incarnation. Celebrating Easter gives us assurance; it affirms that Christ wiped away our sin by his great sacrifice and triumphed over death. Celebrating the ascension gives us hope and points us toward transformation; it affirms that we can become more and more like Jesus is right now….Without the ascension, we might look around and forget that Christ is the ruling Lord of this fallen, broken world….not just that he will reign when he comes again or that he did reign over death, but that he is reigning right now.
• Throughout the article, I have capitalized the word Ascension when it refers to the specific event in Christ’s mission. I do so because I firmly feel that this event deserves the same honor as Christmas and Easter.
© L.D. Turner 2008/All Rights Reserved
Monday, October 20, 2008
Pilgrimage: A Four-Dimensional Model
L. Dwight Turner
On several occasions I have mentioned the need for effective models in which one can gain a deeper understanding of the Christian faith in general and the sometimes complex aspects of the spiritual journey with Christ in particular. In my experience, having a framework through which we can view the process of growing as a Christ-follower makes things clearer and gives me a broader perspective on why certain things are essential and why others things are not.
I recently discovered one such model and I would like to share a bit about it with you. Basically, it is a “Four- Dimensional Model” of the Jesus path to spirituality and is directly modeled on the life of Christ. This model is found in Ken Wilson’s fine book, Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back. Great title, isn’t it?
The map put forth by Wilson is designed to assist individuals and churches move more toward the center, the heart of Jesus’ spiritual path, rather than existing on the periphery. It is divided into four dimensions as follows: active, contemplative, biblical, and communal. In discussing the general principles of the four dimensional approach to “Jesus Brand Spirituality,” Wilson makes clear that these four aspects are interdependent and do not stand alone. He compares them to the four dimensions in the space-time continuum, length, width, height, and time. Again, the author underscores the fact that these four dimensions are interconnected:
We separate them to examine them, but as soon as we’re done, they reconnect. We must resist the temptation to force-fit these into a preordered path: ‘First we take the active step, then the contemplative step,’ and so on. It doesn’t work like that. Depending on where we find ourselves on this pilgrimage, we may be drawn to one dimension or the other first or next. But as we move forward into one dimension of Jesus brand spirituality, our understanding of all the others will be affected because they are four dimensions of one reality.
Wilson is wise to put this caveat out there right at the beginning. From our own experience here at LifeBrook, we have found that it is very common for believers to try to fit new ideas into a pre-ordered program, somewhat like a ladder leading upward one step at a time. In our program The Mirrors of Optimal Living we especially witness this tendency. In our teaching, we always stress that this process is not like climbing a ladder. It is more like a spiral staircase, frequently winding back upon itself. When teaching these issues, I often use the analogy of a bowl of Raisin Jell-o. If you thump one single raisin, all the raisins move.
It is the same with Wilson’s four-dimensional model of Jesus brand spirituality.
Wilson goes on to make the point that these dimensions emerge naturally from studying Jesus’ life and teaching as presented in the New Testament. This was essentially the spiritual path Jesus himself followed.
Stated simply, the active dimension of Jesus’ spirituality occurred because there was a lot going on in First Century Palestine. Jesus and his followers were constantly on the move from one place to another, encountering people, teaching, and engaging in various forms of service such as healing, assisting the poor, and, in the words of Wilson, “mobilizing a movement with an agenda.” For Jesus, all of these ministry activities were a part of his overall spirituality. Throughout his entire mission, teaching was essential. However, the methodology used by Jesus was also action-oriented. According to Wilson:
His training method? Jesus invited curious onlookers to help him do what he was already doing so that his actions would have even greater impact. As we’ll see, his actions were about addressing the pressing problems of his day.
The contemplative dimension of Jesus’ spirituality was also readily apparent to those who were near him over the long haul. Further, this dimension is recorded in the gospels so consistently that it is hard to understand those fundamentalist critics of contemplative practice. Even more directly, Wilson accurately points out that Jesus brand spirituality is, at its core, mystical.
Jesus’ spirituality was also contemplative, because everyone feels there’s more to this world than meets the eye. The world is a mystical playground where, according to the quantum physicists, the most elemental particles – things called quarks and muons and gluons and bosons – pop into and out of existence all the time. No, I don’t understand it, either. But the world is, according to those who can do the math, not as it seems.
For Jesus, this unseen world was very real and he took great pains to make contact with it on a regular basis. I guess it is understandable that he did so. After all, this realm was his home. Even more important, Jesus took what he found when contacting the spiritual realm and brought it to bear on his environment in this world. Wilson continues:
Jesus got up early in the morning and went out to lonely places, and there he prayed (Mark 1:35). When he came back from those times of prayer, you get the impression he must have been making some kind of conscious contact with the divine, because life seemed to blossom wherever he went.
According to Wilson, Jesus brand spirituality is also biblical. After discussing how these days the Bible is often used in either highly selective ways (in order to prove one’s point) or in negative ways (in order to brow beat a lowly sinner into shame and guilt). For Jesus, however, the Bible became something entirely different. Wilson points out that:
…in the hands of Jesus the Bible became a different kind of book. It became a living thing full of the unexpected and the unconventional. It was a book Jesus turned against the browbeaters of his day with one hand, and with the other he comforted and consoled and energized those who had been bludgeoned with it…The Bible in the hands of Jesus tells a story that has a place for us within it. If we could find our way into the Bible through the door that Jesus entered, we might find the storyline of our lives and the world we live in changing for the better as a result.
Finally, for Jesus, the essence of true spirituality was communal. Wilson points out that for Jesus spirituality was about forging connections between people, between people and all living things, and, because God is a living thing, also between people and God.
Wilson has put together an excellent book and I would highly recommend it to the casual reader and the serious student of spiritual formation as well. It is a highly insightful, well-organized work that forces the reader to think outside the box and in so doing, encounter a spirituality that is often a far cry from what we often see in our churches.
© L.D. Turner/All Rights Reserved
On several occasions I have mentioned the need for effective models in which one can gain a deeper understanding of the Christian faith in general and the sometimes complex aspects of the spiritual journey with Christ in particular. In my experience, having a framework through which we can view the process of growing as a Christ-follower makes things clearer and gives me a broader perspective on why certain things are essential and why others things are not.
I recently discovered one such model and I would like to share a bit about it with you. Basically, it is a “Four- Dimensional Model” of the Jesus path to spirituality and is directly modeled on the life of Christ. This model is found in Ken Wilson’s fine book, Jesus Brand Spirituality: He Wants His Religion Back. Great title, isn’t it?
The map put forth by Wilson is designed to assist individuals and churches move more toward the center, the heart of Jesus’ spiritual path, rather than existing on the periphery. It is divided into four dimensions as follows: active, contemplative, biblical, and communal. In discussing the general principles of the four dimensional approach to “Jesus Brand Spirituality,” Wilson makes clear that these four aspects are interdependent and do not stand alone. He compares them to the four dimensions in the space-time continuum, length, width, height, and time. Again, the author underscores the fact that these four dimensions are interconnected:
We separate them to examine them, but as soon as we’re done, they reconnect. We must resist the temptation to force-fit these into a preordered path: ‘First we take the active step, then the contemplative step,’ and so on. It doesn’t work like that. Depending on where we find ourselves on this pilgrimage, we may be drawn to one dimension or the other first or next. But as we move forward into one dimension of Jesus brand spirituality, our understanding of all the others will be affected because they are four dimensions of one reality.
Wilson is wise to put this caveat out there right at the beginning. From our own experience here at LifeBrook, we have found that it is very common for believers to try to fit new ideas into a pre-ordered program, somewhat like a ladder leading upward one step at a time. In our program The Mirrors of Optimal Living we especially witness this tendency. In our teaching, we always stress that this process is not like climbing a ladder. It is more like a spiral staircase, frequently winding back upon itself. When teaching these issues, I often use the analogy of a bowl of Raisin Jell-o. If you thump one single raisin, all the raisins move.
It is the same with Wilson’s four-dimensional model of Jesus brand spirituality.
Wilson goes on to make the point that these dimensions emerge naturally from studying Jesus’ life and teaching as presented in the New Testament. This was essentially the spiritual path Jesus himself followed.
Stated simply, the active dimension of Jesus’ spirituality occurred because there was a lot going on in First Century Palestine. Jesus and his followers were constantly on the move from one place to another, encountering people, teaching, and engaging in various forms of service such as healing, assisting the poor, and, in the words of Wilson, “mobilizing a movement with an agenda.” For Jesus, all of these ministry activities were a part of his overall spirituality. Throughout his entire mission, teaching was essential. However, the methodology used by Jesus was also action-oriented. According to Wilson:
His training method? Jesus invited curious onlookers to help him do what he was already doing so that his actions would have even greater impact. As we’ll see, his actions were about addressing the pressing problems of his day.
The contemplative dimension of Jesus’ spirituality was also readily apparent to those who were near him over the long haul. Further, this dimension is recorded in the gospels so consistently that it is hard to understand those fundamentalist critics of contemplative practice. Even more directly, Wilson accurately points out that Jesus brand spirituality is, at its core, mystical.
Jesus’ spirituality was also contemplative, because everyone feels there’s more to this world than meets the eye. The world is a mystical playground where, according to the quantum physicists, the most elemental particles – things called quarks and muons and gluons and bosons – pop into and out of existence all the time. No, I don’t understand it, either. But the world is, according to those who can do the math, not as it seems.
For Jesus, this unseen world was very real and he took great pains to make contact with it on a regular basis. I guess it is understandable that he did so. After all, this realm was his home. Even more important, Jesus took what he found when contacting the spiritual realm and brought it to bear on his environment in this world. Wilson continues:
Jesus got up early in the morning and went out to lonely places, and there he prayed (Mark 1:35). When he came back from those times of prayer, you get the impression he must have been making some kind of conscious contact with the divine, because life seemed to blossom wherever he went.
According to Wilson, Jesus brand spirituality is also biblical. After discussing how these days the Bible is often used in either highly selective ways (in order to prove one’s point) or in negative ways (in order to brow beat a lowly sinner into shame and guilt). For Jesus, however, the Bible became something entirely different. Wilson points out that:
…in the hands of Jesus the Bible became a different kind of book. It became a living thing full of the unexpected and the unconventional. It was a book Jesus turned against the browbeaters of his day with one hand, and with the other he comforted and consoled and energized those who had been bludgeoned with it…The Bible in the hands of Jesus tells a story that has a place for us within it. If we could find our way into the Bible through the door that Jesus entered, we might find the storyline of our lives and the world we live in changing for the better as a result.
Finally, for Jesus, the essence of true spirituality was communal. Wilson points out that for Jesus spirituality was about forging connections between people, between people and all living things, and, because God is a living thing, also between people and God.
Wilson has put together an excellent book and I would highly recommend it to the casual reader and the serious student of spiritual formation as well. It is a highly insightful, well-organized work that forces the reader to think outside the box and in so doing, encounter a spirituality that is often a far cry from what we often see in our churches.
© L.D. Turner/All Rights Reserved
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