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Letter 1: The Ideologizing of the Church

In his letter David Fitch makes a plea for us to expose our ideology, our “false consciousness” of identifying ourselves by who we are against. He suggests that we should abandon the cycle of the ideological church by “going local.”

Unfortunately, the church in North America is now defined more by what we are against than who we are or what we are for. This kind of ideology happens all the time in our churches. We notice it when someone says “Oh that church is the Bible-preaching church—they believe in the Bible,” implying the others don’t. Or “We’re the church that believes in community.” The others somehow don’t. “That church? They’re the gay church and that one is the church that is anti-gay. We’re the church that plants gardens and loves the environment,” and “Oh, by the way you’re the church of the SUVs.” On and on it goes as our churches get identified by what we are against.

We get caught up in perverse enjoyments like “I am glad we’re not them!” or “See, I told you we were right!” In the process we get distracted from the fact that things haven’t really changed at all, that our lives are caught up in gamesmanship, not the work of God’s salvation in our own lives and his work (missio Dei) to save the world. This cycle of ideologization works against the church. It is short-lived and it breeds an antagonistic relation to the world. In the process we become a hostile people incapable of being the church of Jesus Christ in mission.

And so today, this week and in the months that lie ahead, we must join together as Christians to break this cycle of ideological church. I suggest we can do this by “going local.” We can resist the ideologizing of the church by refocusing our attention on our local contexts. In going local, we inherently refuse to organize around what we are against and instead intentionally gather to participate in God’s mission in our neighborhoods, our streets, among the peoples that we live our daily lives with. Here we gather not around ideas extracted from actual practice in life that we then turn into ideological banners, but around the participation in the bounteous new life God has given us in Jesus Christ and his mission.

We participate in his reign, the kingdom, by actually practicing the reconciliation, new creation, justice and righteousness God is doing and made possible in Jesus Christ. Here we become a people of the gospel again. It is only by doing this that God breaks the cycle of ideological church.

Read David’s entire letter here.

Get involved and write your own letter here.

With open letters from Andy Crouch, Ron Sider, Shane Claiborne and more, Letters to a Future Church paints a portrait of the world as we have it and the mission we have in it. You may find your calling in this book; you may even find your own voice.

The Age-Old Myth, Part 3

If churches wish to embrace the profound truth that God is primarily concerned with what each person is relationally and seek to honor the wisdom of the elders in their midst, what kind of practical changes will the congregation and larger community see?

Encouragement in a healthy lifestyle. Christian teaching maintains that the Holy Spirit truly inhabits the believer, including the body, which is why Paul calls the body the temple of the Holy Spirit. The church can and should be a place of education on healthy lifestyles—that, for example, it is never too late to quit smoking or lose weight. Churches do not often partner with or participate in health-related initiatives, but doing so can being a dual benefit: taking the church out into the community as a caring entity and increasing the health of its members.

A heart for those (of any age) with disabilities. While it is appropriate to strive for “successful aging”—that is, a lifestyle that keeps our bodies and minds sharp for the tasks God has given us—to have failed to age healthfully is not to have failed at being human or fulfilling our calling from God. After all, lifestyle choices rarely contribute to physical and mental health challenges that affect many young people: autism, many cancers, traumatic brain injury, and degenerative diseases. Such ministries often draw in families whose beloved children face such challenges and they teach church members to see the inherent value in each person. Those whose faculties have been compromised by Alzheimers or dementia can be seen in a new light as well.

Support of caregivers. My instinct tells me that churches are already a major source of informal support for adult children, based upon the number of prayers I have heard offered in small groups and church services for people in this situation. But most churches have not drawn upon the many community resources and support opportunities offered in the larger community, nor have they considered the stress of caring for adult parents a need for which their community could use faith-based support and encouragement.

Intragenerational relationships. The paradigm of age-graded Sunday school does great disservice to the development of intragenerational relationships. Likewise, church-related small groups tend to develop by life-stage boundaries. While some intragenerational sharing is healthy and supportive, often the younger members suffer the lack of perspective on their particular struggles. When church leadership encourages the formation of small groups (or life/connect groups) that transcend generational boundaries, they place older members in a position to be able to share their wisdom and experience but also to be loved and cared for by members whose skills can benefit them—for example, younger persons who will help an older church member set up and learn to use their email so they can communicate with their grandchildren.

Capturing the stories of our elders. When a church prioritizes inter-generational relationships, members naturally develop an interest in the unique life stories of their elders. Gifted—or even average—writers can be of invaluable service to families by recording memorable moments in the lives of various older church members. My uncle, a gifted and creative pastor, wrote numerous stories and poems for my grandparents about their childhood, courtship, and experiences in World War II. As a child I was mildly curious about this pastime and enjoyed the stories well enough, but the other day I stumbled on one of them tucked away in a children’s book my daughter had picked up. I had forgotten so much, and was incredibly thankful to have stories of these people I loved, people my daughter will never remember but whose legacy she can continue through hearing their stories.

I fear that many churches fail to take on such ministries because they don’t see an immediate “gospel impact” in them—where are the conversions and baptisms? But talking on such ministries sends a lived theology into the community: God cares for, and therefore we care for, individuals of all ages. God’s word gives a vision for the aging populations in our churches and communities, therefore we follow God even in this.

Emily Varner worked extensively with A Vision for the Aging Church as a freelance editor and publicist for IVP Academic. Her business, AcademicPS, focuses on ministry books and academic texts from Christian publishers. She and her husband doug have a six-year old daughter and are also foster parents to a baby girl.

The Age-Old Myth, Part 1

by Emily Varner

As a small child, I was desperately afraid of elderly people. The white hair, the wrinkly skin, the change in vocal tone all seemed to me a dangerous and potentially contagious disability. I consider with sadness how my avoidance must have felt to my paternal grandmother—white-haired and arthritic from my earliest memory—or great-grandmother—bent nearly double with osteoporosis and missing an eye—neither of whom are around to accept an apology and explanation.

I blame this aversion partly on my temperament and mostly on the fact that I grew up in rather isolated military communities until I was six. My friends and I had young, fit parents and even the “older people” we knew were not yet retired. It took a change of scenery, some growing up, and simply more interaction with elderly people to lift me out of paralyzing fear at the less-than-pretty effects of aging.

But moving beyond simple fear doesn’t necessarily mean that my perspective on the elderly is healthy, much less that it is informed and (perhaps most important) biblical. The effects of sin undoubtedly reach into how a society views and treats its most aged members, and in the experience of far too many older people these days, the church often fails to challenge its surrounding culture with a new vision for both the value and potential impact of its aging members. (And if you haven’t noticed, the Baby Boom generation will very soon comprise the largest percentage of elderly persons our society has ever known.)

A new offering from IVP addresses this concern for the church to embrace its unique position in both improving the lives of seniors and seeking to learn from the lived wisdom of its elders. A Vision for the Aging Church is a partnership between an elder theologian, James Houston (one of the founders of Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia), and Michael Parker, a gerontologist and public health researcher whose work has focused on increasing access to elder-care resources and encouraging community partnerships to benefit the elderly.

This book came to me at an interesting intersection of personal circumstances, not all dealing with aging per se, but changes that were very closely related. My husband’s grandfather was ailing and passed away while I read the book, my closest friend experienced a traumatic brain injury, and my in-laws and parents dealt with serious health issues that were severely impacting their lifestyles. I found its conscious approach to how the church approaches its aging and elderly members relevant to my personal life in ways it had not been even weeks before.

How a church involves older members speaks to the deep-seated theological beliefs of the people responsible for these programs. In my experience, church ministries for the elderly can be reduced to either day trips and entertainment for the active elderly or individual hospital visits to ailing congregants. My cynical side questions this as an attempt at keeping the old people happy so they will continue to give the church needed monies. But the more a church utilizes its aging members’ skills as volunteers and their accumulated wisdom in teaching and mentoring, the more it speaks to the continuing value of every person. Fostering intergenerational relationships and offering practical assistance to the elderly (not to mention the adult children who often care for them) does not come to our churches nearly as naturally as it should.

Part two explores the central theological idea that plays in the background of these issues.

Emily Varner worked extensively with A Vision for the Aging Church as a freelance editor and publicist for IVP Academic. Her business, AcademicPS, focuses on ministry books and academic texts from Christian publishers. She and her husband doug have a six-year old daughter and are also foster parents to a baby girl.

Encouraging Vocational Stewardship

by Amy Sherman

I’ve never known of a church that doesn’t encourage its people to serve God with “their time, talent and treasure.” Sadly, though, few congregations—even those sold out to the missio Dei—actually facilitate “serving God with your talent” in an intentional, sustained, practical and strategic way that pays attention to members’ vocational talents. In a telephone interview, church-equipping guru Don Simmons, who’s helped innumerable churches with volunteer mobilization for decades, reports:

There are very few churches that have strong, intentional systems for deploying their people’s time and talent. Churches would not consider doing a stewardship campaign for money and not having systems in place to be able to gather it in, to disseminate it [and] report back how it’s being used… . But they don’t think of people’s use of their talent in the same way.

Congregants in our pews need to know that they should—and can—connect their workaday world and their faith. So often they feel a disconnect between Sunday and Monday. When we exhort congregants to “live for Christ’s kingdom,” we need to show them what that can look like in their lives 9 to 5, Monday through Friday. We need to do better in training our people to live missionally through their vocations.

In researching Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good, I discovered a handful of churches that are trying to do just that. We can learn much from their efforts.

At Christ Community Church outside Kansas City, pastor Tom Nelson has been preaching for a decade on the high calling of daily work. He visits parishioners at their job sites and uses workplace illustrations in sermons, diligently avoiding language intimating a sacred-secular dichotomy. Instead of only recognizing Sunday school teachers and missionaries, Nelson publicly commissions members for their professional service in local government and public schools. As a result, Christ Community congregants are living out their faith at work in fresh, thoughtful ways:

• Dave and Demi, business owners, go the extra mile in supporting their employees’ families. Their firm’s light-drenched facility boasts a room for nursing mothers and a playroom for kids who come to visit Mom or Dad on site for lunch. And they offer financial aid to employees pursuing adoption.
• David, an architect, now articulates his calling as one of redeeming architecture—designing buildings that “contribute to human flourishing.”
• Jay, an attorney specializing in business transaction law, has found deep fulfillment in realizing that his work is all about advancing the kingdom’s values of peace and reconciliation.

At Church of the Good Shepherd in Durham, N.C., associate pastor Sean Radke has encouraged congregants to meet in vocationally oriented small groups. There they can share ideas about how to advance the kingdom in their particular fields. Already the law fellowship, Justice Matters, has launched a new legal aid clinic.

Grace Church in Noblesville, Ind., Northwood Church in Keller, Tex., and Crossroads in Cincinnati encourage congregants to serve abroad using their unique vocational gifts in specially designed short-term mission trips. For several years Grace has sent IT professionals to serve a seminary in Nairobi; Northwood has sent teams of educators to a partner ministry in South Africa; and Crossroads has sent lawyers, cops and researchers abroad to serve in special projects with International Justice Mission.

Let’s stop asking our bankers, engineers and artists for their canned goods and used clothes instead of their unique vocational knowledge and networks. When we create onramps for parishioners to advance the kingdom in ways that specifically draw on their vocational talent, we’ll find that they experience newfound joy and purpose in their work while the church significantly improves its effectiveness in bringing neighbors near and far greater foretastes of shalom.

Amy L. Sherman is a Senior Fellow at the Sagamore Institute for Policy Research, where she directs the Center on Faith in Communities. Her latest book, Kingdom Calling: Vocational Stewardship for the Common Good, was released in January by IVP.

Being and Seeing Christ

By Jamie Arpin-Ricci. He is an urban missionary, pastor, church planter and writer living in Winnipeg’s inner city West End neighbourhood.

Outside of Scriptural record, no Christian has received more attention in art, literature and the wider culture than St. Francis of Assisi. This unusual saint had the audacity to believe that Jesus actually wanted Christians to do what he taught and the naivety to do so himself, as literally as possible. While such “absolutist” obedience sometimes resulted in awkward blunders and extremist behavior, more often than not it resulted in God’s kingdom powerfully emerging in his world.

Of all of his reckless obedience, it is his loving service to the lepers that has most stood out to me. People of Francis’s day lived in perpetual fear of the disease, with any sign of white splotches on the skin resulting in devastated lives. They were declared “dead to the world”, their property seized, their freedom eliminated and their social status dissolved. They were cut off from everything and everyone, living at the mercy of others, doomed to disfigurement and death.

So why would Francis choose to spend so much time and energy living among and serving these outcasts? Some historians suspect that the complications in his health and eventual death were the result of long-term exposure to the disease. His loving devotion to the lepers was surely one of the most beautiful and powerful examples of being Christ in others. In so doing, he stood as an example to both his fellow Franciscans and the wider Christian community that watched his movement with fascination.

However, Francis was not only being Christ to others. In fact, I do not believe he would have seen that as his primary emphasis. Instead, Francis was drawn to the lepers because he was seeing Christ in them. After all, who better could understand the selfless, emptying of the incarnation of Christ—who gave up everything to dwell among us—than those who had lost everything because of that devastating disease. Francis was drawn to them because he saw in them the Jesus he longed to know, serve and follow.

Living in that tension—between being Christ to others and seeing Christ in others—is a critical one for all Christians, especially those of us in roles of pastoral leadership. Most of us are inspired by the former. After all, who doesn’t want to be identified with Jesus, serving those in need in love? This is worthy our aspiration. However, with the dynamic tension of the latter emphasis, such an identity can easily warp into one of paternalism. This is bad enough for any one of us to fall into, even more deadly for those of us who bear the responsibility to model through leadership the right attitudes and actions of Christian obedience to our communities.

It is when we primarily approach others in ministry through the lens of seeing Christ in them that our intentions, posture and even methodology are transformed into that of loving servants. It breeds a mutuality, humility and unity that is essential to the establishment of God’s kingdom. This does not deny or even downplay the essential spiritual authority in our roles as leaders, but frames them as Christ did—selfless, humble and disempowered for the sake of the other.

Seeing Christ in others was a centrally defining perspective for St. Francis and the Franciscan movement. They did not come as great saviors but as humble servants&mdasheven reverent in their service because they believed they were encountering Christ in the other. The fruit of such obedience continues to be a shining example for Christians in powerful ways. Perhaps the most significant fruit born of such a posture was that, in the end, when they served people as a result of seeing Christ in others, they were truly being Christ to others. The same promise holds true for us.

Jamie’s new book, The Cost of Community, shares the way his community lead him to the teaching of St. Francis and then ultimately to a brand new understanding of The Sermon on the Mount. Jamie sees the sermon as a new calling to community that is still ringing out today, offering perplexing encouragement and at times daunting challenges to us and our neighbors.

The Theological Cure

by Andrew Root

I have a hunch. It is totally anecdotal, but I do think it is based in a reality, one that I’ve sensed over the last decade of talking with youth workers and speaking at pastors’ gatherings.

Here is my hunch: all pastoral ministry has gone the way of youth ministry.

What I mean is this: Almost since its inception youth ministry has been trying to make a case for why fickle people should come to church. Sure, I know that youth ministry has been about much, much more than this (and thank God), but it is a fair assertion to state that Protestant churches began funding in-house youth workers in their congregations because their children were no longer coming or were not all that interested in the church. So we hired young (at times hip) youth workers that could make a case for religious participation.

This meant a number of things: good looking, athletic young workers, big youth rooms, cool events, relational contact, new worship experiences, the blending of technology and Christian practice. And this has had a huge impact on the church (and this isn’t anecdotal); youth ministry people have shifted the direction of the church more than almost any other group of people in the last fifty years. After all, Billy Graham was a youth preacher, then Bill Hybels and Rick Warren were old youth workers, and a good number of emergent church folks, both leaders and participants, are either present or former youth workers.

So pastoral ministry has gone the way of youth ministry. And so far, this is positive—I think. But here is the wrinkle. As this process has happened and as our context has become more detached from Christendom, pastors, like youth workers in the past, have had to concern themselves with how they were going to get fickle people to come to church. At the beginning of youth ministry it could be assumed that people would show up on a Sunday, the only question was, would their children? Now there is no guarantee that anyone will come.

So the pastor has had to take on the entrepreneurial spirit of youth ministry, using programs, events, relational contact, new worship experiences, hip clothes, and the blending of technology and preaching to make a case for giving participation a shot.

But there was a bacteria in this youth-ministry entrepreneurial movement that has now been passed on to pastors. Because the focus was on winning participation, there was a little need or desire to reflect, especially to reflect theologically about the practice of ministry. Thinking was okay, but what won esteem was action. The hyperpractical, scaled down and digestible now became essential. I think this bacteria is now in the bloodstream of pastoral ministry, and unfortunately I think that youth ministry was the original carrier.

But here is my historical hunch, and where my book The Theological Turn in Youth Ministry comes in. In the last ten years I have watched youth workers want (yearn) to think theologically. They’ve been at this winning participation perspective too long and know it is a dead end. They are ready to think theologically about what ministry is and how human action in ministry participates in the action and being of God. They still want action—that is, they still want to take kids on mission trips—but they would also like to reflect deeply on what a mission is and how it participates in God’s own ministry.

But here is a further problem: As youth workers have sought to take this theological turn, their pastors haven’t always been that helpful or supportive. The pastor simply wants the program to continue, adding some more kids and keeping the energy high. So as the youth worker turns to theology, often times her or his pastor is ambivalent.

But this is the gift that the youth worker can give back to his or her pastor: the youth worker can remind you, pastor, that theology still matters, that deep thoughts still have a place.

It is only a hunch, but if youth ministry is guilty of being the carrier of this thoughtless ministerial perspective, then maybe we can become part of the antidote, inviting the church back into a theological conversation on the very practice of ministry.

Andrew Root (Ph.D., Princeton Theological Seminary) is in the Baalson Olson Chair as associate professor of youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary (St. Paul, MN).

On Being Practitioner Guides

by Mark Scandrette

I wrote Practicing the Way of Jesus to address the gap so many of us feel between how we want to live and how we actually live as followers of Christ. As leaders and teachers we long to see people experience the freedom and vibrancy of life in the kingdom of God, and we wrestle with how to best help them become well-formed disciples.

I think one of our temptations is to think that we can lead people to become well-formed disciples by merely teaching about the vision of the kingdom or preaching the need for embodied spiritual disciplines. But you and I cannot lead people to a place we’ve never been ourselves. In the documents of the early church, a leader was someone who “spoke the word of God” and modeled a “way of life” (Hebrews 13:7). In a community of practice, the credibility of a leader is dependent on their lived experience in practicing the commands of Jesus. I’m convinced that to really guide people in the Way of Jesus, we must become the message we proclaim.

It was deeply revealing for me to recognize that my knowledge of the Bible, my experience as a pastor and even my seminary education did so little to prepare me to lead others to do the things that Jesus did and taught. In the reality of the kingdom our credibility doesn’t come from how well we perform publicly but from our lived experiences practicing and teaching the Way. Good leaders are committed learners. We can commit ourselves to being humble students who dare to follow the instructions of the Rabbi in the details of our own lives—by taking on practices that help us become people who live without worry, fear, lust or greed and walk in the forgiveness, power and love that our master promises.

To become leaders of practice we may need to renegotiate our contract of leadership— from service provider to practitioner guide. We can begin to see ourselves not just as hosts, caregivers or communicators, but also as initiators and coaches who invite people into shared acts of obedience. This implies a shift in expectation from “giving people what they want” to inviting them to trust us as master apprentices who will challenge, train and guide in a manner similar to someone teaching you how to cook or drive or plan a sport—less like a college lecture-hall professor and more like a karate dojo sensei.

Not everyone is ready to participate in shared experiments and practices, and people should be free to self-select into this dynamic. My friend Alex leads a medium-sized suburban church. When he first recognized the power of practice for spiritual formation, his first impulse was to try to get the entire congregation to buy in. He taught about the reality of God’s kingdom on Sunday mornings and challenged the whole congregation to do specific experiments he came up with. Most people either ignored his attempts or were frustrated by trying to act alone. Eventually Alex changed his approach.

First, he invited a few trusted friends into a shared experiment. Then he invited the congregation to sign up for a short-term small group called Praxis, which would explore shared practices. As people from the Praxis group began sharing stories of life change, the idea spread throughout the whole congregation. A good place to begin is to simply ask, “What is one thing we can each commit to do, as an experiment, between now and the next time we meet to practice the way of Jesus?”

Mark A. Scandrette is the founding director of ReImagine, a spiritual formation center based in San Francisco. He has extensive experience providing leadership in churches and community-based organizations and has been a minister, writer and spiritual teacher for twenty years.

Co-Pastoring: A Surprising Catalyst for Transformation

By Michael Lueken

When the pace of life slows down and the reckless noise subsides, I see the ugly in my heart more clearly. I see ambition that is often fueled by a craving for significance. I see my identity wrapped around the latest sermon. I see how I brood when I don’t get my way. I see an unhealthy need to be needed. I see how much I want to be the “go to” guy. Over the years I’ve become an expert at ignoring, dismissing or justifying these issues. I forge ahead writing sermons, planning services, leading meetings, speaking at retreats, teaching on spiritual formation and calling others to Christlikeness, while significant aspects of my heart remain stunningly unlike Christ.

Obviously, the tension will never be fully resolved. Ministry can’t wait until everything is “just right” in our interior world. But we underestimate the long-term damage of living in fragmentation. It is crucial for those who seek to lead others toward formation in Christlikeness to engage in their own process of spiritual formation.

Eleven years ago our leadership sensed God’s leading to transition the church from a seeker-oriented model to one that prioritizes life in God’s kingdom and the inner transformation such a life produces. This has profoundly shaped the culture of our church, as well as my own heart. And a surprising means for spiritual formation has been the co-pastoring relationship I have with my friend Kent Carlson.

We have different personalities, strengths and weaknesses. We each have our unique roles in the church, but we work through most things together. We share the preaching and leadership responsibilities. We talk through the major decisions that need to be made. We discuss staff issues, finances and the various other challenges and opportunities the church is facing. We both sit on the elder board.

Over the years people have expressed their disbelief that such an arrangement can actually work. Co-pastoring does create inefficiencies, tension and sometimes conflict. But it has been a profound catalyst for spiritual formation because the dynamics of the daily relationship expose unformed aspects in our hearts that we simply have to address for the sake of the gospel, the church and our friendship. For over a decade we have been learning how to not get what we want. We’ve had to learn how to submit to the other person. There are times when I have to let Kent lead and vice versa. There are times when Kent thinks something should be done a certain way, but I’m going in a different direction and he has to submit his opinions and follow. Throughout the course of a week, there are multiple occasions when we are facing our own insecurities, weaknesses, fears, anger and pride, and we have to deal with these before God or spiral into a black hole of self-absorption and pity.

Co-pastoring is probably not an arrangement to mass produce. There are some crucial elements that need to be present if it has any chance of working. But it has provided a daily laboratory for experiments in the fascinating journey of “Christ being formed in us.”

Michael Leuken is co-pastor, with Kent Carlson, of Oak Hills Church of Folsom, California. He is co-author, with Kent, of the recently released book from IVP, Renovation of the Church.