The People Formerly Known As …

There’s been a series of posts developing since late March that I’ve been trying to follow. They represent a range of perspectives and views on the growing sense of discontent with the established/traditional/institutional/christendom model of church. I’ve posted them and some highlights I found interesting below because I found these posts to be a helpful step forward. While they identify the issues and are clear in their critique they are not mean or bitter. They also declare something of the path or at least the journey forward. They move someway from the problem to the solution and I think we need that. It’s likely that you’ll identify with some articles better than others because of your own perspective.

It’s also very important to note that they are written as polemics and as Heidi points out,

A polemic is meant to provoke – to provoke thought, conversation, even disagreement and controversy. The point being, I think, to raise issues that have long been buried, to throw out the notion of “sacred cows”, and to talk. Really talk. To talk about what the church was really meant to be. To talk about how perhaps our traditions have gotten in the way – or perhaps they haven’t, perhaps they’ve been the conduit to the life of Christ and we just didn’t know about it. Only by dialoguing and conversing about these issues and issues like these can we all really have a faith that is more than one inch deep.

Part 1. The People formerly knows as The Congregation – Bill Kinnon

We grew weary from your Edifice Complex pathologies – building projects more important than the people in your neighbourhood…or in your pews. It wasn’t God telling you to “enlarge the place of your tent” – it was your ego. And, by the way, a multi-million dollar, state of the art building is hardly a tent.

Our ears are still ringing from the volume, but…Jesus is not our boyfriend – and we will no longer sing your silly love songs that suggest He is. Happy clappy tunes bear no witness to the reality of the world we live in, the powers and principalities we confront, or are worthy of the one we proclaim King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Part 2. The Underlying Issues – The Penguin formerly known as the Waddle – Grace

Passivity
We are convinced that a church system which allows believers to fulfill their weekly spiritual obligation by listening to a sermon creates a consumerist audience who have not been encouraged to step into the responsibility of being a disciple and discipling others.

Attractional methods
We understand from Scripture that it is our duty and mission to go to the lost rather than to expect them to come to us.

Programs
We are convinced that becoming busy with programs within the church removes us from developing relationships with those who aren’t involved in church. We no longer equate service in church programs with faithful commitment and service to God.

Dualism
We no longer see a Sunday morning service as the complete expression of our sacred lives. We have developed an understanding of our role as the people of God that requires being the church in all that we do.

Servant leadership
Lastly, we see clearly that the hierarchical structures of leadership that have been taught through tradition are not scriptural. We know that the methods of leadership that are so often defended as biblical are at odds with the type of relationships that Jesus intended for us to have with one another.

Part 3. The Community coming to be known as Missional – Jamie Arpin-Ricci

We are community because it is the incarnational reflection of the Triune God in whose image we are created. We are a community that prefers walking rather than sitting, going where the Spirit has already gone before us, be it in our neighbourhood or ends of the earth. We are united by relationship and vision, not locations and buildings.

For us, generosity trumps obligation, for all that we have is Gods. We give what we have, both financial and otherwise, because we cannot help but want to see His purposes come to fruition. We offer hospitality, opening our homes and our lives to welcome the other. 10% is more likely the amount that remains than what is demanded, and in our mutual generosity, none of us goes without.

We are ruthlessly committed to people over programs, demanding that the latter always serve the former or it will be abandoned. We cooperate, not compete, not seeking to win the praise or demand the submission of others. Neither do we serve buildings and budgets, but they must serve us as we serve others. We seek our greatness in our pursuit to becoming servants.

Part 4. The People formerly known as “The Pastor” – John Frye

There are thousands of us. You probably know many of us now as insurance sales agents, real estate agents, or doing anything besides “church.” We started with idealism about being voices for the kingdom of God and soon realized we became mutated forms of USAmerican business leaders. Even Jesus became a CEO. We traded immersion in the Bible for hyped-up seminars and books about good management, strong leadership and slick public relations. We learned that the size of our church parking lot mattered more than the size of your hearts for God. Be Thou My Vision got altered to “What is your vision statement?”

The People Formerly Known As The Pastor loved the idea of spiritual gifts and gift inventory tools. Now we could recruit you with this slick saying, “You will find your deepest joy when you become a Sunday School teacher, a financial council member, an evangelistic campaign organizer.” We loved the idea of “recruiting.” We could build our religious empire footnoted with Bible verses. More people serving possibly meant a bigger church. We could go to Pastors Conferences armed and ready to shoot off our mouths about “the hand of God’s blessing on my church.” Note that many pastors really do say,”My church.” Our worries at night about problems and struggles in “my church” were the signal that we truly had taken ownership of what is God’s. When we overlooked 20 compliments and ruminated angrily over one negative comment, we knew it was “all about us.” Some of us needed counseling.

Part 5. The Exodus Church – A Plea from the Battle Torn and Worn who are longing for New Beginnings – Greg Laughery

Conflicts are brewing at an alarming pace between Christians who are emerging and those who are not. Fine – let’s get at what we have in common and where we disagree. But please, for the sake of Christ Jesus, let’s do this with grace, love, humility, and a flair for holiness, as we live before the watching world. There has been too much, and it must be said with tears, spiteful innuendo, anger, disrespect and injustice in the past. Let’s not repeat that in the present. These battles get ugly and there is no winner. The numbers of wounded merely increase and the love of Christ pales into obscurity. We are torn and worn by the wars. Release us, oh Lord, and give us a new beginning.

We believe in hospitality and a compassionate welcoming of strangers.

Part 6. The Girl formerly know as a “normal Christian” – Heidi Daniels

You may have noticed that I don’t attend a church building anymore and worried about me, maybe thinking that I have really fallen off the deep end theologically. Maybe you haven’t talked to me in a long time because you are convinced of this. Maybe you’ve thought I’m turning away from God, or away from the Bible, or at least away from the Body of Christ.

I am the girl who was promised the world by church leaders and famous authors, if only I would read my Bible and pray every day and submit myself to Christ. If I listened closely to the voices of “authority” in Christendom, I’d hear messages about how to secure God’s blessing – how to avoid being hurt in romantic relationships – how to live a victorious or successful or wealthy life. When suffering was talked about, no one ever mentioned how dark it could be, how sometimes it felt as if God had left you all alone. Somehow even suffering was victorious, if you could be cheerful and stoic through it.

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian. I’m not normal anymore, I certainly don’t stick with the status quo, I don’t have much reverence for sacred cows, and I’m not afraid to disagree with the majority. But I haven’t stopped loving the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I’m passionate about loving his body – the church. I might not agree with you about how best to do that, but I haven’t forsaken fellowship. I meet with the body of Christ in my home and the homes of others, in coffee shops, across fried rice at Thai restuarants, participating in redemptive conversations and living, loving, crying, and praying together. This, I believe, is Church – and it is something I will love and serve until my dying day.

Part 7. The Women who have been known as “The Pastors Wife” – Lyn Hallewell

We are the women who have been known as the pastors wife. There are thousands of us all over the world. This was not a role we sought to have in life, we simply fell in love with a man who was called into ministry. Initially we were excited with our new “role”, and, along with our husband, we could see all of the potential there was in the Kingdom of God. We wanted to serve God well; we wanted to sow into the Kingdom; we wanted to live the adventure; we wanted to make God proud. Faithfully we went where God led us.

We were expected to be the perfect mothers and never to raise our voice. We were not perceived to have any parenting struggles, and were expected to mentor parents around us. Really though, we were working it all out alone, and thinking that we were making a mess of it. We hoped the latest christian parenting handbook would give us some advice, which we could then pass on to you. Our children were expected to be seen and not heard, always following the ways of the Lord. When our children fell away, many of you just tut-tutted, and raised your eye brows.

Along with our husbands we saw so much potential in the church. Over the years we came to realize that we were being turned into people pleasers, not necessarily God pleasers. Church had become a corporate business, which was gradually becoming corrupted from within. The adventurers in us started to die. We realized over time that the potential in the Kingdom of God is outside of the four walls, in the community. We are still trying to work out exactly how that will look, but we are on a journey again, at the beginning of another adventure with God. Sadly, we have realized, that many of you will not be coming on this journey with us. But we have to shake the dust off our feet.

Part 8. A Former Footsoldier of the “Christian Right” – Mike

I am a recovering hypocrite.

By all appearances, it seems that those who desire to live from a logically consistent worldview tread a lonely path. Everywhere one turns, another church, politician or interest group is touting the right to free speech – while attempting to stifle an opposing point of view. Once upon a time I believed this activity to be strictly on the part of “the liberal left.” Those who saw the same tendency from the other side decried a “vast right wing conspiracy.”

We were both wrong.

Power corrupts, whether one is republican, democrat, conservative, liberal, Christian or athiest. Double-standards do not respect religious or partisan boundaries.

We are tired of hearing that abortion and homosexuality are “God’s topics,” while poverty and racism are not. We believe that God cares just as much about a family struggling to find its next meal as he does about an unborn baby.

Part 9. A Tribe Formerly Called Quest – We are the prodigals – Jim Lehmer

We don’t have your long background in the traditions of the church, so we are more likely to question, “Why?”, and more likely to not understand your tried-and-true answers. We search through your responses for the biblical and sometimes come up wanting, yet we dare not ask again because we were given “the” answer. Because we were graciously led to faith instead of growing up feeling as if it is a birthright, we think everything is new! Wonderful! Exciting! Interesting! We don’t want our boundless enthusiasm, hope, joy and love shoved into nice pat one-size-fits-all answers that have kept you in your box you call “church” all these years.

We are the prodigals.

We’ve come home to find the Bride’s house in disarray. Full of infighting and politics. Worldliness and competitiveness. Taking up what is Caesar’s at the expense of what is God’s. You are dabbling in politics. You are suing each other over bitter schisms and who will get the Bride’s belongings in the ensuing divorce settlements. You put down other denominations with a venom that drips from your lips as foul as any prejudiced slur. We shrink from all that and wonder where is our Lord in His house?

We are not just new numbers to add to your “church growth” statistics. In fact, we did not come because of anything you did. We came because the Spirit led us to you. We are a gift to you as much as you are to us, and yet you leave us unopened, unwrapped, unloved.

If you’ve gotten this far you’ve done remarkably well and I’d love to hear responses to the snippets I’ve quoted or the articles themselves if you’ve had a chance to read them. Personally I’m very grateful people have written so honestly and productively. I look forward to continuing on the journey with it all.