the running reverend
Josh Rhone is a husband, father, pastor, seminarian, and follower of Jesus who is trying to figure out how to best walk in the way of love.
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At this very moment I am sitting in bed typing away on my iPad while watching reruns of MacGyver on Netflix. As I watch I can’t help buy chuckle. In this particular episode MacGyver has been buried in an avalanche. Someone, using just the handful of items he finds on his person, he manages to survive.
As a kid, I was amazed by MacGyver’s ingenuity and his ability to patch together a solution to whatever problem he might be presented with in a particular episode. Then, it was good TV. Now, however, it is both irritating and laughable.
It hit me as I was watching tonight’s laughable rerun that many a pastor and a church operate from an ecclesiological paradigm that is very MacGyver-like. The shifting tectonic plates of culture collide causing an avalanche that seemingly buries the church alive.
The church and/or its leaders survey their surroundings looking for some “thing” that will keep them alive. Some thing that will allow them to hang on at least a little while longer until help comes.
In more than a few instances that “thing” has been a convenient and easy to digest theology (e.g. the “prosperity gospel”) that fills the pews for a time.
Other handy solutions have presented themselves in the form of material and/or programs that have worked in another church. “If it has worked before,” the argument goes, “Surely it will work again and breathe new life into our situation.”
When times get tough and the pews get barren, the church gets resourceful.
Unfortunately, these changes, born out of necessity, are often reactionary. As such they tend to be based upon “what works.” “What works,” however, has a short lifespan. What works, and draws crowds to fill the pews one week, may not the next week. What works, and results in a need for bigger buildings, may not work a year down the road, resulting in a big but empty building that has mortgage and utility payments that still need to be made.
The MacGyver approach to church ecclcan (and does) work for a time.
There is a time and a place for the MacGyvers. There is a need for them.
But this world, God’s kingdom, and the church also need those who do more than simply improvise and react when a crisis comes.
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1As a prisoner of the Lord, I beg you to live in a way that is worthy of the people God has chosen to be his own. 2Always be humble and gentle. Patiently put up with each other and love each other. 3Try your best to let God’s Spirit keep your hearts united. Do this by living at peace. 4All of you are part of the same body. There is only one Spirit of God, just as you were given one hope when you were chosen to be God’s people. 5We have only one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. 6There is one God who is the Father of all people. Not only is God above all others, but he works by using all of us, and he lives in all of us.
7Christ has generously divided out his gifts to us. 8As the Scriptures say,
”When he went up
to the highest place,
he led away many prisoners
and gave gifts to people.”
9When it says, “he went up,” it means that Christ had been deep in the earth. 10This also means that the one who went deep into the earth is the same one who went into the highest heaven, so that he would fill the whole universe.
11Christ chose some of us to be apostles, prophets, missionaries, pastors, and teachers, 12so that his people would learn to serve and his body would grow strong. 13This will continue until we are united by our faith and by our understanding of the Son of God. Then we will be mature, just as Christ is, and we will be completely like him. [a] 14We must stop acting like children. We must not let deceitful people trick us by their false teachings, which are like winds that toss us around from place to place. 15Love should always make us tell the truth. Then we will grow in every way and be more like Christ, the head 16of the body. Christ holds it together and makes all of its parts work perfectly, as it grows and becomes strong because of love.
~The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 4.1-16
I’ve been mulling over this passage from Ephesians in preparation for Sunday’s “Community Unity Service.” While I appreciate the spirit and intention of this service (and others like it), oftentimes I wonder what such services truly accomplish in terms of unity. For example:
- The congregation remains divided along denominational and local church lines. While the congregation on this evening is composed of people from the various Congregations, usually the Congregations cluster together in a given section of the church.
- Music stylings often lead to distance rather than an appreciation of diversity. If hymns are sung, there is usually a contingent of decent size that will sing with gusto. If gospel songs (which many mistakenly refer to as hymns) are sung, there is typically a large group that will sing as if they are part of a heavenly host tasked with announcing the arrival of Christ the King. And, if contemporary worship tunes are sung, the silence is deafening.
- The worship of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit gets supplanted by the plethora of “specials” that make a particular congregation appear especially talented/resourceful/creative. It is not unusual for there to be somewhere between six and ten “specials.” While the term special would probably be a more accurate descripter for Scripture readings, prayers, and other aspects of the service which are sparse and tend to get lost amid the songs, dramas, and other special aspects of the service; the term does convey what so often people do consider to be the special, meaningful, and most important parts of the service: entertainment. I’ve yet to hear anyone comment on the truth that was expressed in and through the reading of a particular biblical text. Similarly, I’ve never heard anyone comment on how a particular prayer or congregational song expressed the truest aspects of their heart’s yearnings. Instead, I’ve heard, “Wow. That choir number was awesome.” Or, “That drama was great. We might have to come check out your church.” With all of the specials, so many times these services take on the feel of a bad America’s Got Talent episode in which you have one church trying to outdo another for the coveted prize of a few more parishioners.
- The liturgy of such gatherings tends towards being “the work of the few” rather than “the work of the people.” This observation is related to the aforementioned observation regarding “specials.” With an increasing number of specials things such as responsive readings, congregational songs, etc. end up being removed to create more space and time for special performances. An unfortunate consequences is that worship, in these services, becomes something that someone else (a performer who is showcasing his or her talent) performs on my behalf. Worship becomes something that is done for me and something that I consume, rather than something that involves the giving of myself to God. Worship becomes passive, rather than active.
- Success is guaged in terms of attendance, emotional highs, and dollars in the offering plate rather than in terms of meaningful, life-changing connection with God and others. At the ministerium meeting following these community service three things are regularly talked about: 1) How much money was received in the offering; 2) How well the service was attended; and, 3) Which specials were the most enjoyable.
The Apostle Paul, however, provides me with hope. He provides a vision of the church in which the disunity and dysfunction that so often characterizes the church and her attempts at unity doesn’t have to have the final word. What follows, therefore, are a few thoughts regarding the course to true unity that Paul charts for his readers.
First, we must understand that our worship is at all times and in all ways a response to God and God’s action(s) toward us. Paul’s plea to the church at Ephesus begins, in v. 1, with the reminder that their calling to live in a way that is worthy of God’s people is a first and foremost a response to God’s decision to make us God’s own. Arguments of predestination and free-will aside, it is sufficient to say that God’s condescension to our level in the person of Jesus is a vivid depiction and declaration of God’s decision to love humanity long before humanity considered turning to God in loving worship.
Second, unity begins with fixing our attention upon God in loving worship and ends in an outpouring of love toward one another. Our worship is a loving response to a God who chose to love us when we were unlovable. As such, our worship of God should lead us to mirror God’s heart for the world by decisively choosing to love others even when they do not appear lovable; hence, Paul’s assertion that we must be completely humble, gentle, patient, and willing to bear with one another in love. Unity begins with our eyes fixed upon God and a commonly held understanding of our own unworthiness. Yet, it also includes the costly work of patiently loving one another even when the other’s point of view is different than our own; even as they say and do things that cause our blood to boil; etc.
Third, unity requires that we recognize that although we undertake varying expressions of worship, we share one Lord, one faith, and one baptism. These are the things that unite us to God the Father and to one another. The other, many, and diverse things that we so often argue over are in many instances are our unique expressions of our love for God. What matters more: transubstantiation, consubstation, or that fact that in and through the Eucharist we announce God’s incredible love for us as expressed in Christ whose body was broken and blood was shed for us? Likewise, what is of greater importance, that “He Touched Me,” “Alas and Did My Savior Bleed” or that God is “Mighty to Save”? Each song expresses the same reality. Why can’t we in unity sing each song with gusto, boldly announcing God’s heart for God’s people.
Fourth, unity necessitates appreciating the unique and diverse gifts that Christ has given to his body, while at the same time employing those diverse and varied gifts for a common, unified purpose.
The question now is: So what? How does this discussion of unity and diversity intersect with our worship? And, an even more pointed question: How might this impact the upcoming unity service?
Here are just a few thoughts on the subject:
- Begin with a reminder of God’s love for humanity and that our worship (whatever particular forms it may take) is first and foremost a response to the love that God has first shown us.
- Include a corporate confession. Protestants, especially Evangelicals, are really freaked out by corporate prayers of confession and pronouncements of pardon/absolution. However, these confessions remind us that we are common ground; that none of us are any more deserving than anyone else.
- Encourage a mash-up of the Congregations. Maybe even going so far as to instruct people at the beginning of the service to change seats and sit next to someone who they don’t regularly worship with.
- Allow for, and intentionally include, varied and diverse expressions of worship. Include readings and prayers that are rooted in historical Christianity, and make use of contemporary readings and prayers. Incorporate a variety of songs, expressing a similar truth and encourage people to worship God through their sing of the lyrics rather than idolizing a particular song or genre. (You might possibly consider sing the same song using two or three different arrangements.)
What do you think? How might we bring multiple congregations from different denominations together to worship God in such a way that we are a unified community that respects and allows for unique and diverse expressions of praise and adoration?
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…congregation is not defined by its collective problems. Congregation is a company of people who are defined by their creation in the image of God, living souls, whether they know it or not. They are not problems to be fixed, but mysteries to be honored and revered. Who else in the community other than the pastor has the assigned task of greeting men and women and welcoming them into a congregation in which they are known not by what is wrong with them, but by who they are, just as they are?
Eugene Peterson, The Pastor: A Memoir (New York: HarperOne, 2011), 134-135.
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Jesus be the center
Be my source be my light Jesus
Jesus be the center
Be my song JesusBe the fire in my heart
Be the wind in my sails
Be the reason that I liveJesus Jesus
Jesus be my vision
Be my help
Be my guide Jesus(lyrics to “Jesus Be the Centre,” by Michael Frye)
he words to this song are both simple and beautiful.
From a personal perspective, they present an approach to life which places Jesus at the center of our lives and being.
Tonight as the lyrics to this song danced through my mind, however, I viewed them from a different perspective. Over the course of the last three days, I’ve spent a great deal of time listening to Alan Hirsch lecture on the mDNA of the church. During the lectures and the discussion time which followed, Hirsch asserted rather strongly that Christology informs Missiology which informs Ecclesiology.
It is an assertion, which for the Christian, seems to make sense.
As followers of Christ, individually and corporately, He is the author and perfecter of our faith. It is Christ who is the Way, Truth and Life. It is He who exegetes for us what God is like.
With that in mind, it would seem that Jesus would both be at the center of the faith as well as the source of and standard by which we measure our own missional effectiveness.
What is the church? Why does it exist?
Bound up in those two classic ecclesiological questions is, it seems, the idea of identity and mission. And if we assert that the church belongs to Christ and that His mission has become our own, Hirsch’s assertion makes sense. Jesus, it seems, would be at the center. He would provide us with what we might know about the missio dei, which would in turn shape our understanding of how God’s people might be organized and mobilized to achieve said mission.
In An Introduction to Ecclesiology, Veli-Matti Karkkainen asserts that, “Where there is a one-sided emphasis on Christology, church structures tend to become dominating.” [1] According to Karkkainen the reason for such dominating structures is none other than the incarnation. In particular, a one-sided emphasis on Christology, in Karkkainen’s view, results in dominating church structures when the church envisions and understands itself in terms of continued incarnation.
If this is indeed the case, it would seem that the idea that Christology informs missiology informs ecclesiology is indeed true, but not quite in the way that Hirsch asserts. In fact, this premise, as suggested by Hirsch, would seem to lead to a form of church structure which would be antithetical to the organic structures which Hirsch also asserts are a fundamental part of the mDNA of the church.
Assuming the Hirsch’s assertion regarding the mDNA of the church is correct, it would seem that we must either abandon Hirsch’s conception regarding the source of the church’s ecclesiology or adjust it in such a way so as to interject new life and fluidity into the structures of the church. Karkkanien, in facts, seems to allow for such a possibility in his discussion of the Eastern Orthodox church, when he writes, “The Christological aspect creates the objective and unchangeable features of the church, while as a result of the pneumatological asoect there is a subjective side of the church. In other words, the Christological aspect guarantees stability while its pneumatological aspect gives the church a dynamic character.” [2]
If this is the case, however, where is God the Father in all of this? What, if anything, is absent from our ecclesiologies if we include God the Son and the Spirit, but fail to include the Father?
Assuming that Hirsch’s assertion regarding mDNA is correct, and assuming that ___________ inform Mission which informs Ecclesiology- who or what would you place at the center?
[1] Karkkainen, Veli, Matti, An Introduction to Ecclesiology (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 33.
[2] Ibid., 24.
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The Wesleyan Church, the denomination of which I am a part, is hosting a series of ‘Pastors Forum(s)’ in the coming months. The purpose of these meetings/forums/discussions is:
to gather knowledge from the grassroots on what needs to be revived, refined, reinvented, and/or restructured in order for North American Wesleyans to achieve our vision of “Fulfilling the Great Commission in the spirit of the Great Commandment.” During three to three and a half hours of conversation, we will discuss what a denomination should look like that is passionately and powerfully spreading hope and holiness to transform individuals, churches, communities, and cultures. Your General Superintendent and District Superintendent want to hear your responses to the following:
-What are your greatest hopes for The Wesleyan Church?
-What is your church already doing to spread transformational hope and holiness?
-What are the barriers that prevent or hinder your local church from doing this?
-What needs to be revived, refined, reinvented and/or restructured in order for The Wesleyan Church in North America to achieve its vision?
-How should we be measuring the health and growth of The Wesleyan Church to evaluate our mission effectiveness?(Excerpt from an email from Rev. Randy Swink, District Superintendent of the Western Pa. District of the Wesleyan Church)
The final question, “How should we be measuring the health and growth of the Wesleyan Church to evaluate our mission effectiveness?” is, for me, the most intriguing and perplexing question on the list.
It’s intriguing because I have a “love-hate” relationship with measurement, because it so often denigrates into a discussion about statistics.
Each May, I sit down and dutifully prepare the annual statistical report, and the accompanying forms, which are required by both my district and the denomination. The process is slow and tedious, but is not nearly as horrible or time-consuming as I was initially led to believe. That said, as I compute and then input the statistics, I am oftentimes left with a sense of unease and dissatisfaction. Are the statistics that are being asked for (statistics primarily having to do with attendance, membership, and budgetary items) really an accurate measure of: 1) what God is doing in the hearts and lives of His people, in this particular location, and at this time? and, 2) the effectiveness of the local church in accomplishing its mission?
I wrestle with the question of how to effectively measure the health and growth, while at the same time evaluating our mission effectiveness, because I’m not sure that it is a question that can adequately be addressed in light of the current institutional structures and emphases. Here is, in bullet-point form, what I mean:
- I was talking with Todd Hunter, the other day, in an effort to get a better handle on some things that we are looking to do in our local ministry context. During the course of that conversation Todd made the comment that, “Once you decide what to measure, you have shaped your mission and future.” I think that Todd’s statement was spot-on. As a local church, we can say that we are about “reaching our community for Christ” or in showing the love of Christ to our community in tangible ways, but when we sit around the table at leadership meeting we only talk about how many visits I made as a pastor and how many people we had in our respective services throughout the week- is reaching our community for Christ or sharing the love of Christ in tangible ways really central to our mission or what we would like to see take place in the future? The truth is that we can talk about such things and say that we are committed to them, yet, all-the-while, our focus and emphasis remains on other things. What we measure shapes who we are now, as well as who we will become. That said, denominationally, can we truly talk about measuring the health and growth, let alone the missional effectiveness, of the Church while at the same time keeping intact a reporting system that is driven by bucks, butts, and buildings? Can we say that we are concerned about missional effectiveness, when those churches and pastors which are recognized are the ones who have built bigger buildings, seen an exponential increase in giving, and/or have seen attendance explode?
- While statistics, necessarily, will always tend to be part of the way that we measure things, might there be a better way for us to “measure missional effectiveness”? One of the newest initiatives to be rolled out by the Wesleyan Church has been that of m3 (which proposes that we focus on becoming a missional, multiplicational movement of God in which we see believers, leaders, and churches being multiplied). Personally, I have no qualms with such an emphasis. In fact, it seems as if the Church, our churches, and our communities would in fact be better places if we had committed believers, leaders, and churches who were on a mission to be the hermeneutic of the gospel. That said, however, is our current system of measures structured in such a way as to measure the force and impact of the missional, multiplicational movement? As we statistically count those who raised a hand, prayed a prayer, or visited an altar are we truly measuring a church’s capacity/ability to multiply believers? How many of those who have been counted on such a line, on our statistical reports, have either prayed a prayer and disappeared (bearing no fruit and evidencing no maturation) or have become a nominal, pew-warming individual? Is it possible that if we are striving to be a missional, multiplication movement, that we should be measuring (in one shape or form) how many believers are moved to minister to the world as if it were their parish?! Maybe, for example, we should be asking whether the belief of a believer is leading to a tangible difference in that person’s relationship with her family, co-workers, and her community. In other words, might we find a way to measure the kingdom-impact of a believer upon his/her sphere of influence?
- When we speak of attempting to “measure missional effectiveness,” I think that we need to decide what “missional effectiveness” really is. Is the mission, which we are trying to measure, something that is universal- in that, it is a mission for all of God’s people, in all times, and in all places? If so, then maybe we need to come up with a way to measure how well our the churches of the Wesleyan denomination are cooperating with the churches of other denominations so that the missio Dei can be accomplished. Are we endeavoring to measure missional effectiveness of a mission which is unique to our denomination? If so, we may need to ask how we can measure these missional distinctives in such a way so as to accurately gauge and measure our success in these areas of ministry and mission, rather than in unrelated areas. Or, are we striving to measure the missional effectiveness of a local church, whose mission may look different from church to church? If this is the case, can a denomination ever hope to accurately measure missional effectiveness?!
These are just some of my rudimentary thoughts on the subject. In some sense, I feel that I have raised far more questions than for which I will ever have answers. What is more, I am well-aware that the questions that I have raised do not even begin to address the litany of questions which exist on the subject.
With that in mind, I would like to pose to questions to you, the reader: 1) Whether you are Wesleyan, or not, how would you define “missional effectiveness”? and 2) What mechanisms/statistics/criteria would you employ as you seek to measure missional effectiveness?
