What if we saw ourselves the way Jesus sees us?  Would it make a difference?  He said…

 “As my Father has sent me, so I am sending you…”

Do you see yourself as a “sent one” from God?  Do you think of yourself as a missionary to your neighborhood?  Do you “feel” the sent ness?  Do you acknowledge being on mission with Jesus? 

God has always been the sent and sending God.  He is always at his work.  He goes before us and will be with us.  We are the sent ones of God.

What if the paradigm of what it means to be a member of a church in western culture shifted one Sunday morning?  What if on that one morning every believer left the building to enter the “mission field” of his neighborhood, his work place, his school, his network?  What if their community of faith supported their “mission efforts” by prayers, accountability, using their spiritual gifts and when necessary financial support?  What if we “went” with God “out” into his world and encouraged each other to “be” the expression of Jesus Christ?  What if our friends and neighbors did not need to go to church because we would come to them, enter their world and “be” the church in their lives?  What if we saw ourselves as the sent and sending ones?  It’s a subtle paradigm shift.  It’s a significant shift.  What if…?

Do you…think…?

1. Jesus celebrates and sustains marriage.  Jesus used marriages in 1^st century Palestine to picture his relationship with his church.  His followers should understand and practice the implications of this picture.  We should encourage marriage, honor marriage and seek to sustain the vows of marriage.  Jesus celebrates and sustains marriage.  We must follow him.
2. Jesus creates community in marriage.   I’ve acknowledged for years that God made us male and female, he made us different.  These differences are not meant to separate us.  They make us more together than we could ever be apart.  They are to be celebrated.  Today I realize Jesus seeks to create community in every marriage.  God was the original community; Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Our creation in his image was to enlarge his community.  He wants to increase his family.  He wants to enlarge his dwelling place.  The husband and wife are to become one… with God.  We are husband, wife and God.  We are community.  We are more together than we could ever be apart.
3. The Church must be to each other and celebrate this same kind of community.  We must practice oneness.  Celebrate the differences.  Follow one head, Jesus Christ.

Congratulations Shae and Raymond! 

Thanks for a fabulous weekend.  Thanks for inviting us to participate.  Enjoy Costa Rica.  Enjoy the rest of your life together.  Follow Jesus. 

Western culture, and much of the remaining world, is gaga over Lady Gaga.  She is a phenomenon in the entertainment industry.  She’s a record setter in the music business.  She’s a pop icon.  She’s a joy to all her fans (called “little monsters”).  She’s an enigma to some who want to understand her.  She’s a freak to many…let’s say…over 30.

Lady Gaga wants to be and should be noticed.  Her understanding and influence on western culture alone should get our attention.  There are lessons to learn here.

 I, myself, am a terrible student of pop culture.  I announced God’s call on my life in the latter quarter of the last century and moved into bibles, books and bubbles.  I’ve lived in the seminary bubble, the church bubble, the conservative bubble, the family bubble and the missions bubble.  I’ve been like a little fetus in my mother’s womb of contentment…sleeping, eating, growing, and oblivious in so many ways.  The bubble has burst.

Lady Gaga arrived on my radar screen in early 2010.  (I know.  I know.  It’s an old screen.)  Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly described her as a marketing genius.  Until then I probably thought she was the newest freak in the hit parade, Madonna on steroids.

I saw her on the David Letterman show recently and was impressed with her savvy and wit.  I thought she was engaging and funny.  Note to self:  look into this Lady Gaga.

“Gaga came to prominence following the release of her debut studio album The Fame (2008), which was a critical and commercial success and achieved international popularity with the singles “Just Dance” and “Poker Face“. The album reached number one on the record charts of six countries, topped the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart while simultaneously peaking at number two on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States and accomplished positions within the top ten worldwide. Achieving similar worldwide success, The Fame Monster (2009), its follow-up, produced a further two global chart-topping singles “Bad Romance” and “Telephone” and allowed her to embark on her second global concert tour, The Monster Ball Tour, just months after having finished her first, The Fame Ball Tour. Her second studio album Born This Way, released in May 2011, topped the charts in all major musical markets, after the arrival of its eponymous lead single “Born This Way“, which achieved the number-one spot in countries worldwide and was the fastest-selling single in iTunes history, selling one million copies in five days.” (Source:  Wikipedia)

Recent headlines include these:

“Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance most played son of 2010”

 

“Lady Gaga receives U.S. fashion icon award”

 

“Lady Gaga remains atop U.K album chart”

 

“Lady Gaga learning sign language to communicate with deaf fans”

 

“Lady Gaga’s new album sells over 1.1 million copies in first week”

You get the idea.  She’s a huge success in the music industry.  She’s famous and that’s exactly what she planned to be.

One more headline, see what you make of this.

“Lady Gaga:  ‘I only pray to women’”

 http://www.metrolyrics.com/2011-lady-gaga-i-only-pray-to-women-news.html

So, how’s she connecting with so many fans?  Here’s a sampling of her lyrics.

We don’t care what people say
We know the truth
Enough is Enough with this horse shit
I am not a freak
I was born with my free gun
Don’t tell me I’m less then my freedom

I’m a bitch… I’m a loser baby maybe I should quit
I’m a jerk… Wish I had the money but I can’t find work
I’m a brat… I’m a selfish put I really should be smacked
My parents tried… until they got divorced ’cause I ruined their lives

I’m a bad kid and I will survive
Oh I’m a bad

Don’t know wrong from right
I’m a bad kid and this is my life
One of the bad kids
Don’t know wrong from right

Don’t be insecure if your heart is pure
You’re still good to me if you’re a bad kid baby
Don’t be insecure if your heart is pure
You’re still good to me if you’re a bad kid baby (A bad kid baby)
A bad kid baby

(From the song Bad Kids)

In the most Biblical sense,
I am beyond repentance
Fame hooker, prostitute wench vomits her mind
But in the cultural sense
I just speak in future tense
Judas, kiss me if offenced,
Or wear ear condom next time

I wanna love you,
But something’s pulling me away from you
Jesus is my virtue,
And Judas is the demon I cling to
I cling to

[Chorus]
I’m just a Holy fool
Oh, baby, it’s so cruel
But I’m still in love with Judas, baby
I’m just a Holy fool
Oh, baby, it’s so cruel
But I’m still in love with Judas, baby

(From the song Judas)

Check out more of her lyrics on her website.  You’ll get a much better feel for her person and her message than you will from this small sampling.

http://www.ladygaga.com/lyrics/default.aspx

Lady Gaga is an outspoken feminist, strong supporter of gay rights (She’s expected to speak at the Gay Pride march in Rome this Saturday), admits to drinking a lot of whiskey and smoking a lot of pot while writing her songs, says shes wears her makeup to bed waiting for the man of her dreams,  has crazy hair, wears outlandish and expensive costumes, and…grew up in an Italian Catholic home in New York, attending an all girls Catholic school.  She was…

 

“…born Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta on March 28, 1986, in New York City.^[10] The first child of Italian American Joseph Germanotta, an internet entrepreneur, and Cynthia (née Bissett),^[11] Gaga has one sister, Natali, born in 1992.^[12] Gaga is left-handed^[13] and began learning to play piano aged four, went on to write her first piano ballad at 13 and began performing at open mike nights by age 14.^[14] Gaga was raised a Roman Catholic.^[15] At the age of 11, Gaga attended Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private all-girls Roman Catholic school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side,^[16][17] but has stressed that she does not come from a wealthy background, saying that her parents “both came from lower-class families, so we’ve worked for everything—my mother worked eight to eight out of the house, in telecommunications, and so did my father.”…

 

…At age 17 Gaga gained early admission to the New York University‘s Tisch School of the Arts and lived in a NYU dorm on 11th Street. There she studied music and improved her songwriting skills by composing essays and analytical papers focusing on topics such as art, religion, social issues and politics.^[14][23] Gaga wrote a thesis on pop artists Spencer Tunick and Damien Hirst; research that prepared her for her future career focus in “music, art, sex and celebrity.”^[24] Gaga felt that she was more creative than some of her classmates. “Once you learn how to think about art, you can teach yourself,” she said. By the second semester of her sophomore year, she withdrew from the school to focus on her musical career.^[25] Her father agreed to pay her rent for a year, on the condition that she re-enroll at Tisch if she was unsuccessful. “I left my entire family, got the cheapest apartment I could find, and ate shit until somebody would listen,” she said.”

Source:  Wikipedia — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Gaga

Appearing on  the CBS news program 60 Minutes this past Sunday, Lady Gaga confessed to being a student of fame.  She told Anderson Cooper, “When I was 18, I was telling everyone I was going to be a superstar.”  She describes herself today as “…a master of the art of fame.”  Cooper says, “Make no mistake about it.  Lady Gaga uses the photographers as much as they use her.”  She however described her early years as feeling like a freak, not fitting in and feeling like she would never belong.  It’s this kind of honesty and insight that so connects with her fans.  Her shows are high energy and described by Cooper as “…an uplifting mantra of self-empowerment and self-acceptance.

http://www.cbs.com/primetime/60_minutes/video/?pid=y2gOtR0e31OcmUDjCNDcyYaLVLGJaDkZ&vs=homepage&play=true

She’s the most talked about entertainer in the world.  She has 7 hit songs in the last 3 years.  She’s loved and adored by fans worldwide while mystifying the rest of us.  If we want to understand a large part of western culture and in some small way extend the influence of Jesus Christ, we might want to ask and answer a couple of questions about Lady Gaga.

Why are her fans so fanatical?  Or as I ask myself, why do so many “sinners” (We’re all sinners.) love to hear her?

• They feel accepted by her.  She tells them they were made the way they are and they should be themselves.
• They feel she understands them.  Her lyrics say what her fans are thinking in their heads and saying to anyone who will listen.  She listens to them.
• She is accessible to them.  Through her market savvy and today’s social media tools, Gaga is more available than any pop star in history.  She is often found on Twitter tweeting with her fans.
• She has a positive message of self-acceptance and self-empowerment.  She tells them they’re beautiful just the way they are.
• She does not judge them. 
• She joins with them in social causes.
• She constantly tells them how much she loves them and all of the above demonstrates this to them.

What does any of this have to do with following Jesus?  What are the lessons we might learn from Lady Gaga?

1. People want to be accepted just the way they are.  Don’t judge them.  Don’t ostracize them.  Include them in you life and community.  If and when they decide to follow Jesus, you’re the person they’ll ask for help.
2. People want to be understood.  Listen to them.  Ask probing questions but not leading questions.  Don’t try to get them to tell you what you want to hear.
3. Stop trying to control or fix people’s behavior.  If and when they want your help, they’ll let you know.
4. Put yourself in a position to hear and receive the criticism of others.  Take some of it seriously.  (Gaga uses twitter, official site chats and market surveys.)

I’m not asking you to become famous.  I’m not suggesting you adopt Lady Gaga’s dogma, morals, or behaviors.  I’m suggesting people of influence in our culture need to be understood.  They tell us much about the culture we wish to influence.

Jesus lived his life on the margins of his society.  He was clearly subversive and a part of the counter-culture.  He rejected the values and mores of the elite in his culture but deeply loved and understood its people.  He ate and celebrated with people on the margins.  We could never do better than to follow him.

Professing Christians don’t seem to do well disagreeing with each other.  It’s like we believe the kingdom of God rises or falls on our proving our point.  We act as if we believe God’s purposes cannot be accomplished unless we’re right.

Here’s what’s so fascinating.  Most of our disagreements are over methods and not mission.  In other words, we spend the majority of our time arguing about everything…everything but the “main thing”.   Even if we attack the issue and not the person, it’s the wrong issue.

Let’s argue about our mission.  Let the discussion be on why we’re here.  Once we agree on the mission of the people of God we can discuss the effectiveness of our methods.  Those methods may be viable only if they’re accomplishing God’s purpose.

I’ve come to discover that there is a whole world of professional Christians who live primarily in the church or the Christian academy, and who determine what is the so-called true and proper terminology or the correct biblical procedure for mission, but who never seem to embody the ideas that they describe. On the other hand, there are theologically untrained people who are reading the Bible and intuiting new ways to create proximity with not-yet-Christians. These exiles often don’t feel appreciated or understood by the conventional church. They have been marginalized by their other Christian friends who thought their ideas and lifestyle too radical or too unsafe to accommodate. But they are on to something, and in their unorthodox practice reside the seeds of the survival of the Christian movement.  (Michael Frost in Exiles:  Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture)

Michael Frost argues the primacy of following Jesus’ example if we’re to be on mission with him.  Jesus incarnated the life of God wrapped in humanity.  If we live incarnationally we might expect our methods to look something like his.  Are these true of you?  The church you attend?

1. An active sharing of life, participating in the fears, frustrations, and afflictions of the host community. The prayer of the exile should be, “Lord, let your mind be in me,” for no witness is capable of incarnationality without the mind of Jesus.
2. An employment of the language and through forms of those with whom we seek to share Jesus. After all, he used common speech and stories: salt, light, fruit, birds, and the like. He seldom used theological or religious jargon or technical terms.
3. A preparedness to go to the people, not expecting them to come to us. As Jesus came from the heavens to humanity, we enter into the “tribal” realities of human society.
4. A confidence that the gospel can be communicated by ordinary means, through acts of servanthood, loving relationships, good deeds; in this way the exile becomes an extension of the incarnation in our time. Deeds thus create words.

(Source:  Michael Frost in Exiles, Hendrickson Publishers)

Are these behaviors consistent with the purpose of God?  Should the example of Jesus be significant to our behavior today?  Are these the things we are presently doing?  If not, is what we’re doing working?  Are we accomplishing the purposes of God?

Let the discussion continue.  Now, what was the issue?…

“Stories of the ‘good old days’ when everyone attended Sunday school, or when traveling evangelists commanded audiences of thousands, will not do the trick.  If our most dangerous memories revolve around a time when American Christians didn’t drink, smoke or attend the cinema, then we will only ever be moved to nostalgia, not to action” 

(Michael Frost in Exiles:  Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture)

Frost argues the benefit of “dangerous memories”.  For the Jews living in Babylonian captivity it was the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Moses and Jacob and Joseph.  By following the impulses of God’s will in their lives, these heroes demonstrated that God was present and powerful and active across geographic and cultural boundaries.

For present day God-followers to be inspired we must return to memories more powerful than “the good old days”.  Communities of Christians must constantly return to the story of the Gospel.  These are the “dangerous memories” capable of moving us to action.

“…the Christian’s dangerous memories are those of a man who lived in nearly every way differently from the way we are told to live today.  The stories of Jesus are an affront to the empire because they call us to abandon consumerism, greed, self-centeredness, and violence.  And no empire based on these things wants to be reminded of them.  Our dangerous memories are a threat to all who profit from the status quo…

 

…Our memories of God’s human manifestation will continue to perturb us, inviting us to an alternative set of values that transcends our normal allegiance to our post-Christendom society.  The Gospels are replete with stories that shake us out of our preference for the levelheaded, reasonable memories that the church often presents to us.  Jesus is not levelheaded, nor is he reasonable.  Just when we imagine we have him figured out and boxed in, he wriggles free, confounding our formulas and simplistic explanations.  Let’s face it:  the Gospels are not bedtime stories at all.  Far from sending us drifting off to a carefree sleep, they trouble us, forcing us to reassess the deals we have done with the spirit of this age.”

 

(Exiles:  Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture)

How’s your reassessment going?  How much does your life look like Jesus?  Do we share his values?  Behaviors?  How do we answer these questions?  Do we answer them with a list of things we don’t do or with a list of God inspired and empowered actions?

What deals have we done with the spirit of this age?  Will we continue to call what we’re doing Christianity? 

If you like the status quo, don’t read or listen to Michael Frost. 

There is a global conversation on the decline of Christianity in Western Europe and America. This conversation continues in the context of what God is doing in other parts of the world. In places like China, India, Africa and even Cuba there is an explosion of faith, multiplication of disciples and rapid planting of churches. (Check out David Garrison @ http://www.churchplantingmovements.com/ ) Here’s the question: If God is doing this in other places, why is he not doing it here? Why do churches in the West continue to decline?  I’m sharing some blogs on people who’ve helped engage and involve me in this conversation.

Michael Frost is part of this conversation.  Frost is an internationally recognized missiologist and one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. His books are required reading in colleges and seminaries around the world and he is much sought after as an international conference speaker. Frost is the Vice Principal of Morling College and the founding Director of the Tinsley Institute, a mission study centre located at Morling College in Sydney, Australia.

He is the author or editor of ten popular Christian books, the most recent of which are the highly successful and award-winning The Shaping of Things to Come (2003, co-authored with colleague Alan Hirsch), Exiles (2006) and Re:Jesus (2009). These books explore a missiological framework for the church in the postmodern era. Frost’s books have been translated into German, Korean and Spanish.  (Source:  Amazon.com)

In his book Exiles:  Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture (Baker Book 2006) under the chapter heading of ”Following Jesus into Exile” Frost relates an incident which happened here in my native state of Texas.  A young Christian, believing Frost was interested in “cool” and innovative ways to do church, shared how his pastor had driven a tank onto the platform at church, popped out of the hatch and delivered the Sunday morning message.  After getting over the shock of the mental picture (and the size of a church building in which it could happen) Frost asked this young man, “Do you think Jesus would do such a thing?”  He continues relating the incident…

 The question surprised him initially, particularly because he thought that I would be impressed by the story.  But after some thought, he reluctantly admitted that maybe Jesus wouldn’t use a symbol of military might and temporal power to enhance the authority of his teaching.  In fact, the more you think about it, the more you realize that everything about Jesus is contrary to the symbolism employed by the minister that Sunday.  Jesus humbles himself and embraces the frailty of humanity. What’s more, he embraces the abject defenselessness of the life of a poor Galilean carpenter. His public ministry, though clearly demonstrating the supernatural might of the kingdom of God, eschews any recourse to earthly symbols of power.  The more you know about the exile Jesus, the more you cannot possibly picture him driving an armored personnel carrier. The kind of power demonstrated by Jesus is the more radical force of humility, peace, love and mercy.  Military forces are needed today only because humankind will not live as God intended in the first place.

 

Driving a tank into the pulpit might be cool (well, it would certainly grab everyone’s attention, I suppose), but is it a reflection of the Christ?  A tank is a symbol of destruction. Jesus was a man of peace, a man who brought healing, restoration, and reconciliation to those whom he served.  What has happened that a Christian minister, presumably a keen student of the Gospels, could think that driving a tank was an appropriate illustration of the ministry of Jesus? How vigilant we must be to ensure that we don’t allow our impression of Jesus to be held captive by the prevailing mores of our secular culture! Rather, it is essential that we continue to return to the Gospels to ensure that the reverse occurs: to allow Jesus to hold our hearts and imaginations captive in response to the dominant thinking of our time.  For exiles trying to live faithfully within the host empire of post-Christendom, the Gospel stories are our most dangerous memories. They continue to fire our imaginations and remind us that it’s possible to thrive on foreign soil while serving Yahweh, but it’s the kind of thriving that often rejects popular wisdom.  These stories are the standard by which we judge all other stories, all other descriptors of life today. If, after reading these dangerous biblical stories, you can’t imagine Jesus the Messiah as a televangelist, strutting around on stage in a flashy suit, playing it up for the cameras, then you are forced to reject this image and seek another mode of being Christ today. If you can’t picture Jesus driving a tank or pouring millions of dollars into new church-building projects, then you are forced to allow the dangerous ancient stories to judge the insipid contemporary ones.”  (Bold emphasis added)

One of Frost’s best books is the one he co-authored with Alan Hirsch.  The Shaping of Things to Come (Hendrickson Publishers July 2003) should be required reading for all ministry and mission students.

Frost speaks all over the world and is one of my favorites to hear.  You can listen to him on Vimeo (vimeo.com/).  Simply go to the site and type in his name, Michael Frost.  Expect to be challenged.  Expect to be inspired.  Don’t expect the status quo.

http://vimeo.com/19261558

We celebrate the rugged individual.  We like the strong independent type.  We encourage self-reliance and self-fulfillment.  Be all you can be.  Get all you can get…Well, wait a minute now, let’s not go too far!

Much of what we celebrate in our culture (materialism, consumerism, self-centeredness, etc.) is contrary to God’s idea of community. 

I believe we were made for community.  The first man and woman were made in the image of God for God.  They enjoyed each other in the way God (Father, Son and Spirit) had enjoyed one another in eternity past.  God was enlarging his family.  God was growing his community.  God was creating a dwelling place.  God was expressing himself.  These were the purposes of God and they were a reality BEFORE the fall of man, before sin entered the human race.

Each day in the pristine environment of the garden God and Adam and Eve would enjoy each other.  God wanted larger numbers to experience the same community.  Be fruitful and multiply after your kind.  The kind made in the image of God.  The kind made to fellowship with him.  The kind made to be an expression of him in all creation through our relationship with others.

What went wrong?  What went so very wrong?

• Eve and then Adam failed to seek God and each other.
• Eve and then Adam failed to depend on God and each other.
• Eve and then Adam failed to listen to God (the community of Father, Son and Spirit)
• Eve and then Adam believed a lie.  (The lie that God is independent and interested only in himself.)

We often see God as the only being in the universe with the right to do as he pleases.  But that’s not how God is.  That’s not how God thinks.  That’s not how God operates.

“Let us make man in our image…”  Do we think the Father does anything without consulting the Son and the Spirit?  Do we think Jesus did anything on his own?  Does the Holy Spirit operate without consideration of the Father and Son?  Is there not a mutual submission in the Trinity?  Is there not a oneness in the Godhead?

We struggle in the church to be like God.  Our spiritual communities wrestle and divide over the silliest things.  We don’t look much like Jesus, do we?  Why?

Could it be influenced by what we celebrate in our culture?  Could it be we are much more like our culture than we are the culture God is creating in Christ Jesus?

What would we surrender to experience God’s community?  What would we surrender to experience God?

) Here’s the question: If God is doing this in other places, why is he not doing it here? Why do churches in the West continue to decline?

Reggie McNeal joins the conversation through today’s blog.  His book The Present Future:  Six Tough Questions for the Church from The Leadership Network should be part of the conversation if you have a longterm realationship with institutional church.

McNeal correctly observes:   We’re asking the wrong questions.  We can’t ask the wrong questions and expect to get the right answers. 

Wrong Questions:

How do we do church better?

How do we grow this church?  (How do we get them to come?)

How do we turn members into ministers?

How do we develop church members?

How do we plan for the future?

How do we develop leaders for church work?

Six Tough Questions:

How do we deconvert from churchianity to Christianity?

How do we transform our community?

How do we turn members into missionaries?

How do we develop followers of Jesus?

How do we prepare for the future?

How do we develop leaders for the Christian movement?

 Reading Reggie helped me in two ways:

1. I began to understand how far behind I am in my thinking and how far I have to go.
2. I was encouraged and helped to see how I could move forward in the conversation.

 Watch and Hear Reggie at Exponential 2010 through Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/12725343

Read more about Reggie below.

Reggie McNeal enjoys helping people, leaders, and Christian organizations pursue more intentional lives. He currently serves as the Missional Leadership Specialist for Leadership Network of Dallas, TX. Reggie’s past experience involves over a decade as a denominational executive and leadership development coach. He also served in local congregational leadership for over twenty years, including being the founding pastor of a new church. Reggie has lectured or taught as adjunct faculty for multiple seminaries, including Fuller Theological (Pasadena, CA), Southwestern Baptist (Ft. Worth, TX), Golden Gate Baptist (San Francisco, CA), Trinity Divinity School (Deerfield, IL), and Columbia International (Columbia, SC). In addition, he has served as a consultant to local church, denomination, and para-church leadership teams, as well as seminar developer and presenter for thousands of church leaders across North America. He has also resourced the US Army Chief of Chaplains Office, Air Force chaplains, and the Air Force Education and Training Command. Reggie’s work also extends to the business sector, including The Gallup Organization.

Reggie has contributed to numerous denominational publications and church leadership journals, including Leadership and Net Results. His books include Revolution in Leadership (Abingdon Press, 1998), A Work of Heart: Understanding How God Shapes Spiritual Leaders (Jossey-Bass, 2000), The Present Future (Jossey-Bass, 2003), Practicing Greatness (Jossey-Bass, 2006), and Get A Life! (Broadman & Holman, 2007). His latest book, Missional Renaissance: Changing the Scorecard for the Church (Jossey-Bass, 2009) details the three shifts that church leaders must make to engage the missional movement and offers suggestions for a different scorecard to reflect missional ministry.

Reggie’s education includes a B.A. degree from the University of South Carolina and the M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees both from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Reggie and his wife Cathy, have two daughters, Jessica and Susanna, and make their home in Columbia, South Carolina.  (Source:  Leadership Network website)

Think about culture in these 3 ways:

• Western culture is not equal to Christianity.
• Church Cultures are not necessarily Christian.
• Christian culture is a counter-culture.

Western Culture Is Not Equal to Christianity

The culture in which we live is like water to fish.  We live in it, swim in it, but give little thought to it.  We embrace its values, accept its assumptions and live out its subsequent practices.  Without thinking about it we might assume most westerners are Christian in their faith belief.  This would be incorrect.  Without thinking about it we might assume most Americans are Christians.  This is not true.  With a little thought we might assume the fastest growing denomination in America is Catholic, Baptist, Assemblies or some other evangelical group.  But it’s not.  The fastest growing faith group in America is “unaffiliated”.   America is not only post-modern; it is also post-Christian.

Do I hate America?  No.  I don’t hate America.  But I know being American or pro-American does not make me Christian.  Patriotism is not God’s answer.  I’m not called by God to propagate American culture.  I’m not called to “colonize” this culture across the globe.  I’m called to question and if necessary confront this culture.  I’m called to announce the kingdom of God, the present and continuing reign of Jesus Christ.  I’m called to understand how Jesus Christ is good news to this culture and to incarnate and translate this message every day.

Church Cultures Are Not Necessarily Christian

Every church culture has its own culture.  Many are like living in a “church bubble”.  We can live in this bubble and have a few values and practices different from the larger culture.  We assume a position of separation in a walled city and invite others to leave their “sinful ways” and move into our church culture.  Of course, church cultures are not necessarily Christian.

Research (Barna Research Group, Gallup Poll) informs us there is virtually no difference between the practices of professing Christians and non-Christians in western culture.  The bubble has burst, but not for everyone.  There are those “ministers” who still traffic in rants against the culture in order to legitimize their position with their bubble constituents, but practice the same materialism, consumerism and other self-serving practices.  They and their adherents feel good about their faithfulness, but may in fact be the blind leading the blind.

Jesus did not pray his followers would be taken “out of the world” but that the Father would keep us safe “in the world”.  (John 17)  We were never meant to be “bubble” people.  We demonstrate, announce and explain the kingdom of God, the present rule and reign of Jesus Christ.  Our world view in a sentence is “Jesus is Lord”.  He is the explanation for our behavior.  “Sinners” hear us gladly.  Neighbors are glad we’re their neighbors.  His “life” flows from life to life.  The hungry are fed.  The thirsty have drink.  The sick and imprisoned are visited.  The poor have the good news declared to them.

Christian Culture Is a Counter-Culture

Jesus was a counter-culturist.  He was a subversive.  Michael Frost and Alan Hirsch often refer to him as “untamed”.  He was always doing and saying things that upset the establishment.  He told the Roman official Pilate his kingdom was not of this world.  He saved his harshest words for the culturally ingrained, piously religious.  While hopeless “sinners” loved to hear his message of hope, the “captains” of the cultures he confronted looked for a way to kill him.

He is the sent and sending God.  He calls us to follow in his steps.  We follow him, not a doctrinal statement, creed or approved set of practices.  He invites us to join him in his redemptive work.  He says come follow me and we’ll live the reality, values, assumptions and practices of his culture in the middle of our culture.  We’ll form missional faith communities and become a sign, foretaste and reality of what is to come.

The cost?  The cost for following him was and is the same for rich and poor alike…EVERYTHING!

I ask questions.  My blogs are full of questions.  Why?  Sometimes I do it without thinking.  I think in questions.  Sometimes I think of them as questions I’m asking myself.  I think out loud.  Sometimes they’re questions I think others should ask.  Sometimes…sometimes I recognize them as questions my Lord is asking me.

Consider today the words of Acts 20:30…

“…Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them…”

These distorters, perverters of the truth will not be “outsiders’ but leaders recognized and responsible for shepherding groups within the church at Ephesus.  They will be loved and respected.  Their position of trust will enable them to lead others away from Jesus and after themselves.

Leading others away from Jesus is always to disciple them to another.

We are called to make disciples who follow/obey Jesus Christ in the present and in all places until the end of this age.  (Matthew 28:18-20)

We are wrong if we lead or encourage other believers to follow or align themselves with any person or thing other than Jesus.  We must not claim the position or authority of Jesus but humbly follow and encourage others to do the same.

We must disciple others to the person of Jesus.

• We must not disciple people to pastors, religious teachers, spiritual practitioners, gurus, etc.
• We must not disciple people to churches, religious groups, denominations or other organizations.
• We must not disciple people to a creed, doctrinal statement, systematic doctrine or a specific singular teaching.
• We must not disciple people to a set of practices, rules or regulations.
• We must not disciple people to ourselves.

Paradigm Shift

What if we see ourselves as being discipled by the risen, living Jesus Christ?  What if we go with him?  What if we join him in his world, in his work?  We follow him and encourage one another to follow him.  We follow him together.  We are not simply or primarily following his teachings.  We follow him.  We follow his person.  We learn Jesus, love Jesus and follow (obey) Jesus in a community of faith.

We say to those “younger” in faith, follow me ONLY as I follow Jesus.  In this way they follow Jesus and not us.  The question is not what do we think, what is our opinion?  The question is what is Jesus saying, what is Jesus doing?

I’ve had some wonderful pastors, teachers, seminary professors, mentors, friends, brothers and sisters.  I have only one Lord.  You have only one Lord.  Let us follow him together.

Whose disciples are we?