ViewPoint on mission

Take a listen to the August 28th installment of ViewPoint (Church of God radio program). They are beginning a series that will review and recommend noteworthy books. On this broadcast they discuss The Radical Reformission by Mark Driscoll (Mars Hill Church, Seattle). Some good thoughts on mission, and especially encouraging to hear this being discussed more within our own movement.

 

(Don't forget that you can subscribe to the ViewPoint RSS feed)

How do we measure success?

Ronald Green, Pastor of Gordon Church of God (Gordon, Nebraska), has a blog devoted primarily to manuscripts and videos of his sermons. What caught my attention is the video of  Ronald Duncan, General Director of Church of God Ministries, who preached in Gordon on July 24th. I was especially curious to see and hear our North American leader share in a local congregation (as he has never visited my church!).

 

While I have always found Dr. Duncan to be a solid and steady individual, I was somewhat frustrated by some of his introductory comments leading up to the sermon. Bringing greetings to the congregation, he gave a brief report of what is happening in the Church of God, and was quick to express that some of our congregations are doing very well. That's good news. But, it was the measuring stick that he used that concerns me. Urging the Gordon attendees to guess, he asked, "What is the largest size church that we have in the Church of God today?" (ANSWER: Crossings Community Church in Oklahoma City with around 4500 in Sunday attendance), and then went on to proudly state that we have more large (i.e. over 2000) Church of God congregations in the U.S.  than ever before. Interestingly, the entire population of Gordon is below 2000, so I am sure they were somewhat bewildered by the entire exercise.

 

To be fair, Dr. Duncan did quickly add that "we have many small churches that are doing a wonderful job". But, the emphasis that Sunday morning reinforced the notion that success is measured by size.

 

I don't want to be too hard on Ron, as I am convinced that his ultimate definition of success extends beyond size, and that he has a deep appreciation for congregations of all sizes. My real concern, however, is that his comments are a telling reflection of what most people in the Church of God really think when trying to measure church success: "Bigger is better".

 

Certainly, numerical growth is ONE way to assess church success. And, I do celebrate our sister congregations who have been effective at touching and gathering large numbers of people. But, in the quest for more heads to count on a Sunday morning, we can be misled into believing that  Large Church = Mission. This is not always the case. Some small churches may be far more active in true mission.

 

It is a demonstrated fact that most of what appears to be "church growth" in North America is simply transfer growth, or the attraction of people from other churches. Very few, the "mega" churches included, are truly engaging and impacting the secular culture around them.

 

I encourage all of us, Dr. Duncan as well, to re-examine our ideas of church successs. Yes, let's celebrate where God is work, but may we find ways to highlight mission, not just warm bodies in pews.

 

Modern thinking

Recently on CHOGTalk (a Yahoo! discussion group) I posted a message in response to a debate that was developing over the creation-evolution debate, mainly in response to the recent movement to include "Intelligent Design" ideas in public school curriculum.

While I am convinced that we have much bigger items to discuss, underlying this debate are some deeper issues that we must come to terms with.

Here's a slightly modified form of my original message:

I am astounded at the current "intelligent design" debate because the advocates of this position fail to see that they themselves have been duped into a modernistic worldview, and are trying to read Scripture from those lenses. To be blunt, conservatives who insist on reading the Bible with strict literalness are in bed (albeit in a strained relationship) with the "liberals" they so are so quick to attack. Obviously they each have different presuppositions, but when push comes to shove they both approach these issues from the modernistic, rational perspective that is more a product of the Enlightenment than the milieu of Scripture.

I am not a "liberal", as liberalism has proven its emptiness. But, I also consider myself less and less part of "conservative" Christianity, which also blindly taking its cues from culture instead of faith (despite what they may claim). The tragedy for conservatives is that they are unaware of their sell-out to modernism. And, of course, we in the Church of God have increasingly gone lock-step down this path of intellectual and spiritual demise.

It's time we abandoned these polarizing categories since they have become so emotionally charged and bereft of meaning. If we are serious about following Christ, we all must repent of our worship of modernism (or any other intellectual trend), and that includes our modernistic reading of Scripture. Only then will we allow the Spirit to reveal truth and work among us.

Busy with Mission

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks, as life has been busy. As I mentioned in my last post, my church has been working through what it means to be on mission. We've had some interesting discussions in the intervening time, and have decided to make some major changes in how we "do church". As our new direction folds, I plan to share with you some of the things that we will be doing, and telling you what works (and what doesn't). And, please continue to share your stories!

Mission in Hanford

Since we've been discussing the movement of the Church towards mission, let me share some personal experiences from my own pastoral ministry over the past few days.

Our congregation (Central Community Church in Hanford, CA) has been working through this whole missional thing for several months now. This is an exciting church to be part of, as we have gone through some radical changes in the last three years, transitioning from a fairly staid Church of God congregation to one that it is now reaching unchurched people. But, we still struggle to transform our dominant paradigms. Yet, our church leadership is open and committed to continuing in the process of re-focusing the church even further.

But, we're starting to get it. For example, last week during one of our cell group gatherings a woman, who works at a restaurant, was telling us how she frequently comes home with lots of leftovers and doesn't know what to do with them as she has more than she and her husband could ever eat. She's been doing the obvious things, like eating some, freezing some, and giving some to family and friends. But, what came next was exciting for me, the group, and even her. The suggestion offered to her was: Why not take some of it across the street from where she lives to a housing complex and simply knock on some doors and introduce herself as a neighbor and offer some food? This was a radical idea for her, since she has lived in this house for many years but has never met anyone across the street from her. But, suddenly she saw that this could be a way for her to make some connections with people outside the church. It opened up a paradigm shift to her, and to others in attendance.

To further challenge us toward mission, Sunday evening we showed Reggie McNeal's NAC sermon. It was very well received, and certainly provoked a number to look at the church 's mission differently than before. We are following up with a congregational discussion this coming Sunday to further lead our church towards mission.

I know that my experiences over the past few days are just a very small snippet of what God is doing elsewhere. I'd love to hear how you are coming to terms with mission in your church. Please pass along your own stories by leaving a Comment, or by posting on your own blog and leaving a link in my Comments.

Hit the Bullseye

In case you are not on the e-mail list of "Multiplication Moments" from the Church Multiplication department at Church of God Ministries I will paste portions of the latest edition below, since I can't find a link for it on www.chog.org.

These are quotes from Paul Borden, author of Hit the Bullseye: How Denominations Can Aim the Congregation at the Mission Field, who spoke at a Ohio Ministries meeting on July 7th.

Some good points to contribute to our discussion on mission:

“Churches are not to be places of refuge. They are to be a place where lost people come to find Christ.”

“Not all growing congregations are healthy ones. However, all healthy congregations are growing.”

“If congregations are not growing, they are not healthy. Not only that, they are being disobedient to the call of Christ.”

“Do we run the state and national organizations to continue the institutions or to fulfill the mission?”

“The local congregation should be at the top of the pyramid. Of all church organizations, the congregation is the only one ordained by God. All congregations have the same mission, to fulfill the Great Commission, and God expects the local congregation to do whatever it takes to achieve the mission.”

Incarnational vs. Attractional Mission

Here's another thought provoking post from the Australian blog, "Backyard Missionary", that provides additional food-for-thought to us in the Church of God who are concerned about a return to mission.

The title says it all.

LINK

Strege and Babylon

Fitting to my recent post on "Examining our Unity" is consideration of the "Trumpet times" column by Merle Strege in the June/July 2005 edition of OneVoice! magazine (page 25): "Babylon: More than a place".

As the Church of God historian, Strege discusses "Babylon" and "Babel" - key terms used in the early years of our movement. These biblical images were understood by our pioneers to represent the falsity and confusion surrounding denominationalism, the perceived major threat to Christian unity.

Strege contends that the use of "Babylon" especially "has waned among many Church of God congregations". He believes that this symbol needs to be "reexamined" since denominationalism may not be as big an issue today, others are also taking up the cause of Christian unity, and "equating Babylon with denominations may never have been a truly valid interpretation". Instead, Strege proposes that we adopt a much broader understanding of Babylon, namely the seduction of the dominant culture.

I really can't disagree with Strege's intrepretation of Isaiah 48:20, the source of our anti-Babylon teaching. It certainly fits better with the original context in which Isaiah was written.

For me, the question that erupts from this discussion is whether our Christian unity emphasis may be tainted by other problems?

Certainly, the teaching of unity in Christ is a central New Testament theme that hasn't been lived out very well in Christendom. But, could it be that our take on unity ended up as a negative stance, that is, largely anti-denominational instead of presenting a positive vision of what the church should and could be like? Has this negative, confrontational orientation contributed to our own struggles with unity, exhibited in many of the internal issues we face? And, most important, can this help explain why we have been weak at engaging our culture in mission?

Questions worth pondering.

Mission: Chicken or egg?

Briefly going back to the topic of Mission (before continuing on the Unity issue):

I came across a reference on Backyard Missionary to something said by Gordon Cosby (Pastor of Church of the Saviour in Washinton, D.C.). Cosby said that

"in all his years of service he has never (and he emphasized ‘never’) seen a group go from community to mission. Rather, he said one should organize around mission and community will follow."

A very significant observation. Many times we make the false assumption that if we build and nurture our congregation, mission will be a natural outcome. The reality is, however, that this rarely happens.

A reminder that mission must be at our center, just as it was for Jesus.