50. Calling

We had a discussion tonight in our group about what we felt God was calling us too. Calling was defined sort of in two ways. Strongly speaking, it is something you feel like God wants you to pursue, and you may feel disobedient to him if you do not do it. Sort of a phone call. On a lighter note, calling is something you feel drawn to or oriented towards because of your values, gifting and passion. Sort of like a text message. Here are some of the things people in our group feel called to.

Grant - Mentor Youth (Social Justice) Creation Care - Communal Living

Phil - sustainability - The Harvest Network - Social Justice (Naz Garden) Facilitating and Building Community

Lana - Serving when needs arise (relational ambulance) College Ministry (CCSC)

Tiffany - The Harvest Network - Prayer

Jenna - Family - Mentoring New Moms - Sustainability, Simplicity, Natural Living - Serving Community (MOPS)

Tim - Start new Xian Communities - The Harvest Network - Pray4Clarksville.com -site under construction, Prayer walks and rides, Writing book

Amanda - Communal living (proximity). Being a Spiritual Mom

We decided to:

1. Share more often and more frequently about these things we are already involved in, and how God is working in and through us and other people as we answer our calling.Both in our group meeting times and in our relationships.

2. Pray about how we think there may be some things we can do collectively as a group in the areas our callings overlap.

3. Pray for workers to be thrust out into the harvest field.

It is so cool to have these conversations. It is the body of Christ in action. So Magnificent!

49. Out There

It is amazing what God is doing and saying through people all over this nation. every now and then you stumble on someones blog and you read their reflections about what they are involved in, what they see God doing, and what they see as being valuable and worth reproducing. It seems that God is unleashing a host of apostolic activity in America right now. Many of these voices are spread out and it is hard to connect the dots or even know where the dots are. It is a grass roots, bottom up thing, which tells me God is in charge of it and we are not.

Something I like about this movement is that it seems to be made up of people who despise "empire" styles of leadership. In other words, no one seems to want to control it, harness it or leverage it to build their own personal empire. It seems to be an empowerment movement. Some of this may be because the movement is being led from people with an apostolic gifting. We apostles hate doing the "pastor" thing. Don't stick us in the church cubicle, we need the wide open spaces of the frontier. We like the community, we just do not want to maintenance it.

I am thankful that these "new expressions" of christian community are surfacing. I often feel like there is not a place for me in the conventional style church. It is tough being on the fringe and not really having a support structure I also find it difficult to fit into my own faith heritage as well. The Church of Christ in my area seems so damn legalistic! There are definitely great Churches of Christ across the nation with a healthy theology, but for the most part, legalism seems to be the primary marker of the COC at this stage in the game It is sort of a double wammy, church expression and church tribe sort of put me out of reach for the time being.

It may sound like I am somewhat feeling sorry for myself. Honestly, sometimes I do sulk sulk and throw the pity party. The thing that keeps me on track is that I am on mission with the Father, and it is exactly where I want to be....out there on the fringe exploring the new frontier of apostolic activity.

48. Bus Ministry?

From time to time I visit several blogs of people who are involved in simple church expressions. One of those blogs is God Grown. Mark Willis is putting together a spiritual map of Chicago. I was inspired by some of the stories on the site and decided to start riding a public bus route once a week to pray for the people who get on the bus and the neighborhoods it rides through.

We went for the first time last week and it was........interesting to say the least. For one, we saw very different people. Second, the bus driver talked our ears off. Needless to say, we did not get much praying done. We will probably need to sit in the back of the bus next time!

It was great to get a pulse of the city and people who live in it. I am wondering if I need to get a "pray4clarksville" site going. I will put this to prayer.

A quick word on prayer. We do not have the power in us to see the Kingdom come. Prayer is a confession of our weakness and frailty. We are not the magicians of the Harvest. It is The Lord of the Harvest we need to be talking to. Dependency on God is a mark of apostolic activity.

But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God...Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. II Corinthians 2-3

I wonder what would happen if people began to pray the Luke 10:2 prayer on-site with in-sight. Praying locally with love, all that stuff. Could God be leading you to pray more focused and intentionally for people? I think we all know the answer to that one.

47. Sex, Sin and Distortion

I am reading through James D.G. Dunn's book The Theology of Paul the Apostle. It uses the book of Romans as a template, or launching pad for discussing his theology. Dunn has this really cool insight about sex and idolatry I want to share.

"Paul thus sees the effects of sin principally in the distortion of humankind's two principal instinctual drives. It is not the sexual drive which is most fundamental. But just as the sexual drive can be sublimated and redirected into other channels, so the instinctive urge to surrender oneself to a greater can be sublimated and redirected. When it is thus cut loose from the truth of God, it becomes more a destructive than a creative force. And when it combines with the instinctive urge to create new life, the power for distortion of life and subversion of society becomes almost uncontrollable." WOW! This is some good stuff. I had all kinds of epiphanies as I read this.

1. Some of the most destructive things that have been done to and by humanity were empowered by a distorted understanding of God. Evil can be packaged in religion. This is a typical strategy of the enemy to pervert good into evil.

2. Our sexual drive can be channeled into unhealthy expressions, just as religion and worship can. The powerful thing about sex and religion is that a lot of times they can be very deceptive. unhealthy religion and unhealthy sex can, in the beginning, appear to give you what you are after. It takes some time for you to pick up on the fact that they are not truly delivering what they promise. You get just enough of God, just enough order in your life with bad religion that you think you have the real deal. You get just enough pleasure, just enough intimacy to think you have reached the climax of sexual experience. The truth is,religion and sex can be wonderful, if they are allowed to be channelled by God to their healthy expressions.

3. I of course can not get away from an application to ecclesiology. Reification is when you treat something that is a product of human creation as if it existed all by itself apart from the activity of humans to bring it into existence. The best example of this is institutions. Institutions are created by people getting together to do things over a period of time. The oddity with institutions is that even those who create them can experience the institution as something that in turn acts back on them as a reality outside of themselves. They create an organization, and then experience that organization as an outside entity that in turn influences them and calls on them to promote and preserve it with their resources.

This plays into our discussion because in an effort to "create life" for God we start organizations. The thing about organizations is that we tend to treat them as if they are realities in and of themselves. We reify them and give them a concrete status. As such, it positions the organization to compete for loyalty to the ultimate reality, God. Institutions flirt with idolatry because they can easily supplant the reason for their existence. Institutions tend to gravitate towards self-preservation, a quality that is anti-thetical to Kingdom values of dying to self and giving away our resources to produce life. Institutions are great if they serve a purpose of being a catalyst for life, and not self preservation. It is a tension we must live with, but it is a tension we must be aware of if we are to allow God to use the natural for the supernatural.

46. "Making Disciples"

You know, going back to the basics can be a thrilling adventure, but it can also remind us of how forgetful we are. I can remember back in college teaching a class on what it means to be a disciple, and it wasn't until recently that I was reminded of this concept again. Like a freight train barreling down a railway, I was confronted with how axiomatic this idea of making disciples is and should be to Christian communities.

Mathew is the only gospel we find mentioning this phrase for Jesus last words. It hit me this morning as I was reflecting on it that Matthew, as someone who was primarily writing for Jews, framed the great commission in a "learning/mentoring" paradigm because learning Torah was one of the axiomatic pursuits of a covenant keeping Jew.

The only thing is, I don't think Matthew had learning Torah in mind. The Torah had become flesh and lived out it's full meaning in front of them. Making disciples meant making followers of Jesus. This of course involves learning from a cognitive standpoint. academia can be a great blessing or a subtle cursing as well though. If Jesus life and ministry is any clue about what it means to make disciples, then we can be sure the "learning" is embedded in a relational framework of modeling and exercise.....in other words outside the class room.

What if we filtered our ministries, our "church planting" and all that stuff that drives us through this lens of making disciples. I think it would be a healthy corrective to start here for several reasons.

1. It is process oriented. Jesus is not asking us to focus on numbers or levels of acheivement. He is asking us to make disciples. Getting into the numbers game flirts with treating people as projects and trophies. the goal is not just "salvation." It is to be a disciple, a follower. This changes the rules of the game for a lot of us.

2. It keeps Jesus at the center. Jesus is not asking us to "grow" the Kingdom. Not even to plant churches! Wow! Now this of course could all go back to semantics etc. Planting a church is sometimes short hand for creating a community of believers made up of either seekers or believers or both. But if you will allow me to make a distinction, planting a church and making disciples CAN BE two different things, although they do not HAVE TO BE. It is really all a question of where you start. If my goal is to make disciples, then a church will surface out of this process and activity. Too often planting a church is about gathering a crowd and being cool. Franchising if you will. Planting a church should be the by product of making disciples. Making disciples keeps us pointing people to Jesus, not just drawing them into our organization or building.

3. It keeps us focused on what matters, transformation. Conversion is about starting the transformation process. It is not about reaching the climactic point of the journey. Using this language of being a "making disciples" draws us away from a one time event and keeps our eyes on the journey of transformation. It implies an incomplete project, not a final destination.

44. Breaking New Ground!

Some of you know about the organization we have started The Harvest Network. We want to help people feed themselves. The motto is "Don't Buy It, Grow It." Up until now our main project has been with the Clarksville First Church of the Nazarene and helping them use their food pantry ministry and their property to create a Jubilee garden. Working with this church has a lot of benefits from a Kingdom standpoint I might add. Great people there.

We also have another focus where we want to help people start growing their own food in their back yard. This past Saturday me and Tiffany went to a low income neighborhood right next to the projects here in Clarksville and went door to door to create awareness about The Harvest Network, sort of a "here we are, use us if you want to start a garden." We knocked on this one door and their was a couple with 6 kids who want to start a garden! We met with them this past Tuesday night to help them plan their garden and this weekend we will be helping them to till it up and plant. This is our first family to work with as The Harvest Network and we are so excited.

Please pray for all of those involved for the Father to work his will into the situation.

43. Neil Cole on Organic Leadership

Isn't it great when you find out you are not crazy? I sometimes feel crazy when I think about "organic leadership" and simple church stuff. I know the power is in God and not a model, but our models come from somewhere: our values, paradigms and mostly tradition. Neil Cole has a great interview on Shapevine.com

He reviews his new book "Organic Leadership." It was sort of funny that he was saying some of the same things I was saying in a previous post about organic leadership. I'm not crazy after all!

42. God of Wonders

What is God brewing here in Clarksville? Honestly I don't know. Most of the time he does not let us know before hand. It sure would be nice to get the down low on his activity though. Especially where we fit into the picture. Me and Tiffany have been going back and forth about what God is up to and the implications for our purpose here in Clarksville.

One thing is for sure, we serve a God of surprises. I have been trying to trace God in our journey here in Clarksville and sometimes it is as clear as day what he is doing, and at other times I just want to tell him a few things, if you know what I mean.

One thing I can bear witness to, God honors faith. The kind of faith in Hebrews 11. He honors the kind of faith that builds before you can justify the outcome. The kind of faith that sticks to morals when it costs. The kind of faith that orders your life around a sure principle of God. The kind of faith that just looks down right stupid to the outsider. We serve a God of wonders! And while he is beyond our galaxy, he is also present in us. If we can abandon our selfish preoccupation, and be lifted out of our own mode of self preservation, God fuses us with LIFE, FAITH, HOPE and LOVE, all from the Spirit. Faith is so given and taken for granted, and yet it is so axiomatic to our walk with God. I don't want to be ordinary. I don't want to operate out of fear or mundane expectation. I believe, help my unbelief.

41. New Gnosticism?

This is one of those words that you tend to hear about in lofty theological or philosophical conversations. Do not dismiss it too quickly though. It has remained hidden from us (no pun intended) for too long. The readers digest version of this word is, physical matter is bad and we need to escape form it. To go a little bit deeper, the human body is bad, and we need to escape from it. To go even deeper, it's what the Gnostic's of John's day were pitching to certain Christian communities. They said "We have the secret to escaping from this evil prison of the material body and the basic elements of the world."

Don't kid yourself and think this is only an issue that "they" had to deal with back in the NT times. No, this is alive and well today. Not necessarily in seed form, but definitely present. For example, it is full blown in how we view eschatology and what will happen when we die. N.T. Wright talks about this in his new book Surprised by Hope. Gnosticism has seeped its way into the root of our theologies, eschatology's, and especially our spirituality.

I want to offer a possible new form of gnosticism. A derivative if you will. Those of us in the simple church movement sort of pride ourselves in not being "institutional" or tied down with programs and structures. Some even say that programs are what you do when you don't know how to listen to Jesus! While I would not go that far, I can see the point behind the statement. There is no doubt in my mind that religion, programs, buildings and structure have a powerful tendency to take over and replace a relationship with God. They can be a crutch, a habit....lets be honest, an idol! That being said, the above mentioned things are not bad in themselves. Institutions, as Mark Willis recently said to me in a chat, boil down to this: People coming together to accomplish something, and doing that something over a long period of time. This is of course the readers digest version. But the point I am getting at here is that you can not escape institutions! Any kind of pattern or habitual habit, from a sociological standpoint, smells of institutionalization. Institutions, like our bodies, are not bad. Our bodies are fallen and have limitations and trappings for sure, but God is for our body and the earth, and will redeem them in the new creation. Institutions, while having some glaring limitations and downfalls, that need to be addressed and called out mind you, are still social realities. They, lik eour bodies, can be instruments of God and can be used by him for his glory. To be totally non-institutional is first of all, from a sociological standpoint naive, and from a theological standpoint, flirting with gnosticism. Institutions are an inevitable byproduct of human action, and they do not need to be escaped from indefinitely, but rather put to proper use. In short, they need to find their rightful place in the Kingdom. I have a few ideas about that rightful place, but God rules over all and will redeem all in the end.

Now I will be the first to say that the conventional style church needs to become self conscious and aware of its institutional limitations. To keep doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results is a definition of insanity (thank you Einstein) Some structures do indeed constrict life and are even void of life. But maybe another approach is to ask ourselves, "What kind of structures allow life to permeate and flourish?" I will no doubt come out on the side of the organic approach to community and leadership, but this should not be too short sighted. We all speak from our gifting and personality. I do believe that organizations can set themselves up in ways that not only allow the life and vitality, already present in people, to flourish. But they can also play a role in nurturing that life as well. It is a reciprocal relationship. The challenge is to discern what structures do this in your context. So, I guess in the context of this discussion, I am an agnostic?

40. Staying Connected

Starting a Christian community from scratch is hard work. Even in the Bible belt, surrounded by churches and "Christians", there can still be a sense of, well, I will go ahead and say it, alone-ness. We at Ikon have been 8, 20, 12 and so on when it comes to numbers. We all have sort of transitioned into a more simpler form of Christianity for various reasons. I think a common thread that runs through the group is, we ant to focus on authentic community, spiritual formation, and following Jesus without the negative side of tradition and religion, and dare I say, too much institutional-ness.

Doing such a venture in such small numbers is a real challenge though. I have been reconnecting with some people from conventional churches and the fellowship has been great. We all need to be connected with our Jesus family. we also need to be connected with the church at large in some fashion. Starting this non-profit, The Harvest Network has been a great tool for me to step back into the conventional church circles and re-connect with some great folks. I am also seeing God work in all kinds of places. God works in people, regardless of their church model.

All that being said, I am refreshed by two groups here in Clarksville. Clarksville First church of the Nazareene and Mission Clarksville. Here's a shout out to two different models of church, with God working in both of them for His Glory.

We need each other, regardless of our philosophy on ecclessiological models. How's that for unity!

39. House Church Mega Church Hybrid?

I found a cool church in Kettering Ohio that has been able to pull off the House Church Mega Church model. At first I was a bit skeptical, but it seems like they allow the house churches to be autonomous and treat the Sunday gathering as a tool to celebrate what God is doing in the House Churches. I am so encouraged to see this happening there. I have often wondered what we would do if our house church began to multiply.

I would love to go visit them and see what it is like in real life. Outside looking in it looks pretty cool. Could this be a good approach if you value the big gathering? They even use the APEPT model for their leadership teams and such.

I plan on calling them to talk some about their model and their values. Here is a link to their web site. http://www.apexcommunity.net/

38. A Different Front Door

Thinking a little bit more about organic leadership and communities, I had an epiphany the other night in bringing these thoughts together with some other posts about institutions. Previously in another post I suggested that the role of institutions is specialization in Kingdom tasks. I recently talked to an old college buddy of mine whom I have not talked to in over ten years. Needless to say we have both changed a lot since then. Surprisingly though, he has been having some of the same thoughts I have been having about leadership and community. In fact, he is preparing for a church plant in the Atlanta area as we speak.

The cool thing about it though is that he is not going to do the traditional franchise model of church planting. Instead, he is going to "parachute" into a new area by starting a non-profit organization.

I have been having similar thoughts about church planting lately, but my conversation with him sort of helped me connect some dots. In order to share the good news in Clarksville TN, we need to develop relationships with people. Doing the house church thing can sort of make it challenging to do this. However, we have recently started an organization called the Harvest Network which will help people grow their own food in their back yard. My thoughts now a days are leaning towards the non-profit functioning as sort of a hub of relational activity and then as a result of those relationships, new vibrant families of Jesus would form. Sort of a spin off, or by-product of the non-profits activities

In other words, the non-profit is the engine that generates a meaningful, redemptive connection with the community. It is out of these relationships that new organic communities of the gospel can be formed in peoples homes, Starbucks, or anywhere. In the franchise model, traditionally speaking, you get a building to do church and attract people to the services. In this model (I am not sure what to call it) you may get a building, but it is for the purpose of serving people day in and day out through whatever services your non-profit will provide. The organizations service to the community would then be the catalyst to form relationships with the lost. If I were to diagram this, it would look something like this:

The only way to pull this off is to have intentional relationships with people outside the interests of the non-profit. These kinds of relational pockets and networks already surround a lot of the non-profit organizations. The apostolic role in this situation would be to facilitate communities out of these pockets, made up of individuals who are open to relationships and the gospel. In this model, the non-profit would appear to take the place of the conventional style institutional church, while having a lot of the same benefits that institutions bring to the table. The major difference is that the non-profit''s interests are not to draw people indefinitely into itself. The non-profit naturally creates the formation of organic communities, while the conventional style church traditionally sees organic communities as a crop to be harvested and gathered into the confines of the church. This model reverses that and does not see the non-profit institution as a final destination. The organic communities formed around it would instead be the fertile ground for the seeds of the gospel. The goal would not be to get them into the box, but to get the gospel to them right where they are, and better yet, to nurture their faith in that very context. You would not ask them to "come to church". You would ask to eat lunch, have a cup of coffee, pray with them. Share their story and pray.

37. Organic Leadership

Trying to lead in an organic community is a different bag of tricks. I have the ghost of former leadership paradigms always creeping in. I love this new environment of leadership though. Such an adventure. Most of all I like how it allows me to be me without manipulating other people in the name of Jesus. Great freedom here, but great challenges as well. Right now I am learning the art of community engagement. I never did much of this before in my ministry career. This is too my fault of course. I am now learning to be in conversation with the people I am trying to "lead" and it is a beautiful process. No more depending on charisma and personality. God and discernment, community and gifting, and most of all calling are prerequisites to leading people. All of this is a gift, skill set and discipline.

In trying to put my thoughts together on this, I created a diagram to sort of help myself distill my thoughts on this new way of approaching leadership. The following diagram represents the paradigm I was both formally, and informally trained to lead in.

The leader goes off and spends time with God and gets a vision from God, that oddly enough would also align with his or her own values, giftings and passions, or shortly put, their spiritual DNA. In turn, they would develop a strategy of how to accomplish this vision and turn to the community and basically say, "Here is my vision, are you with me or not?" As you can see, this puts a lot of pressure on the community. Not to mention it basically treats the community as a support structure for the leader. In other words, the community is there to follow the leader and serve his or her vision. (The vision of course being narrowly interpreted by a few for the many.) In raw straight forward terms, the leaders in this situation ends up harvesting the members energy, time and gifts for "their" vision. It assumes that the leader knows what God wants the people in the community to do. I could say a lot more about this model and its limitations, but I will stop here for time purposes. I will say however that there are times and situations when this model of leadership is appropriate, so don't get me wrong here.

There is another way of approaching leadership however. I will use the trendy word organic to describe it, but it really is a good term to use when explaining this different approach. The following diagram illustrates this.

As you can see, it starts with people being in conversation about their individual values, giftings and passions in a community setting. On an individual level, this approach provides a pathway to discover what God is up to and how I fit in with it in my own situation outside of a group dynamic. Community is a great place to discover and affirm your spiritual DNA. However, what happens if God is brewing things together where a pattern starts to emerge in a community with peoples DNA? This in my mind warrants a process of discernment on what a group can do collectively for God. This sort of creates a group dynamic for collective ministry efforts.

In organic communities, often times people may not have a homogeneous passion or calling. People may be called to vastly different directions in ministry. This is what can make house church and simple church sort of challenging if you have a conventional church background. You are so used to operating primarily on the collective, group dynamic level that you skip the personal discovery of gifts and calling etc. This leaves you sort of wondering if we should be "doing more" on a group level. (There is of course a place for serving as a group etc) Leadership in an organic environment is more like facilitating people to learn their gifts and operate in them. Leadership is not telling other people what to do for God, as if any of us know that for other people! When you do this, you actually end up cloning people after your own DNA. Cloning is when you take one persons DNA and try to reproduce it in another person. Everyone has different DNA when it comes to ministry direction. You do not pick your DNA and you can not clone people or communities after your own DNA. TO try and do this ends up being manipulative at best and spiritually abusive at worst. A more healthy approach is to nurture the DNA that is already there into healthy expressions so it can flourish into life giving forms.

Another contrast to the top down approach is the vision and strategy are open ended in this organic model of leadership. They are not tied to one persons perception of the situation. You do not arrive at a destination here. It is a constant journey which feeds off of your DNA and calling of God in the context of community. Any feedback on this?

36. Breaking New Ground. Our group decided to have a "Where are we? " or "Who are we?" discussion last night. We wanted to sort of call out some things that we see happening in our group as it relates to our values. It was a great discussion and brought some good clarity. Our hope is to discover who and where we are collectively so as to locate our selves oin the map per se. Some one asked "what is the map of?" That is a good question. I would now say that the map is a journey of being missional/incarnational. At the time I did not know what to say.

God is defninitely brewing some cool stuff in the group as a whole. Not to mention our own individual lives. This is actually the first real attempt to sort of organize ourselves for mission. So far it has been organic on steroids! While we still don't see a need to be organized for organized sake, I think it is good to sort of map out the terrain and explore what it looks like for us to do something collectively. I am excited!

35. Liberation baby!

After working for the man for almost three years, I am about to be liberated. On July 4th of all days. Work is one of those under explored topics that doesn't receive a lot of attention in the theological world. It is one of those topics that people just assume is a natural part of life and there is not much to be said about it. "Everyone has to go to work, if you don't, you are one of the lucky ones." I hate to say it, but full time ministry is seen as one of those lucky ones. I can say this because I was in full time ministry for over 10 years.

I think this is another one of those gaps that clergy laity creates, that is, the gap between the working class and "the luck ones." Don't get me wrong, full time ministry is definitely work, but it is a different kind of work. It has a totally different dynamic that a 9-5, or even sales. really there is nothing else like it, especially if you are in a majorly dysfunctional church.

That being said, it is still perceived as being a cushy job, and in some ways it is. A theology of work is often passed over because the ones doing the teaching are primarily the full time ministry people. The Sunday school teachers are sort of assigned their materials a lot of the time, or have other topics they like to explore.

So is there anything to say about a theology of work? Or is it just one of things that can pass under the lens of scripture and not really reveal anything? I think the concept of work is at the core of our experience. We spend most of our time at work. (Maybe this is why no one wants to study it!) A large portion of our lives revolve around it. The entire world does it. Most people are jaded about it, or don't like their jobs.

But work is actually linked to the origins of humanity. Genesis 2 and three don't just vaguely mention it, they make it a pivotal theme in humanities purpose. God gave Adam a job, to work the garden. This means work is not a byproduct of the fall. It is in our human design to work, and transform the creation, subdue it etc. However, after the fall, work took on a different flavor. It became tainted by a fallen world,one that became hostile to us. Actually, this negative side of work is rooted in the fall. So what does that tell us about work? Well, if you are in Christ, then work is supposed to be a part of the new creation. We should no longer regard work as apart of the old way of doing things. It has become new.

Some of you are thinking, "Yeah right, there is nothing new about my job! It sucks!" Well, this is precisely where the concept of new creation comes in. First, we are being redeemed from the curse, so it is not necessarily the existence of work that changes, but our attitude and perception of it is being aligned with God's agenda for the world.

I guess what I am trying to say is, no matter what kind of work we are involved with, we are sent into that environment by God to be salt and light. This in and of itself puts a new spin on work. While it does not absolve work of it's cursed flavor, it repositions us to approach work in a new light. And isn't this part of what Paul means in II Cor 5:17 when he says, we no longer see people from a worldly perspective....new creation.

I am about to become self employed, and I tell you what, this was a hard learned lesson for me to learn in this past 3years working for FedEx. They micromanage your day, it is somewhat monotnous, and you have to be out in all kinds of weather. Not to mentioin it isnot very intellectually engaging. Still, I was forced to process that part of my life through new creation. I would like to say I passed the test with flying colors. The truth is, I bitched and moaned a lot and enjoyed some what cycnical moments through all of it. I am glad that God was in my life through all of it, because I could have easily become a corporate zombie.

34. Eschatology and the Environment

Just recently I have launched a curb side recycling venture here in Clarksville. I had no idea how much time or money it would cost. Once I get through this start up phase it will be smooth sailing I think, but the birthing process is always costly and at some points painful.

I was initially led to this interest in the environment through my study of eschatology. I do not get into the whole pre-mil, a-mil, post-mil discussions. I sort of thing those miss the point of eschatology. What will happen in the end can be discussed in a broader framework of God's activity and relationship with all of creation. either way you slice the pie, God will step in with fresh creative power and transform our cosmos into a new heavens and a new earth.

So what does that have to do with us today? Participating with God in the world means functioning as a sign or symbol of that very transformation. Our lives and our ministries should foreshadow the coming transformation of the cosmos. This of course includes the transformation of people into the image of God. (Romans 8:28-30) But it also means participating in the management of creation. Being a good steward of the earth is an element of discipleship. It is a moral issue. It is a systemic issue.

We can no longer live under that Platonic notion that spirit is good and material is inferior. God created the spirit and the body. He will redeem both in the end. This also includes the creation at large. Romans 8. I am wrestling with how to capitalize on this recycling venture for the kingdom. There was a great article in the paper that allowed me to point to God and his formative influence on my interests in the environment. IT is this kind of thing that gets me excited because it sort of shatters the perception that Christians are merely concerned about boosting their own kingdoms.

I guess what I am trying to say is, the environment is from God, to ignore it, abuse or misuse it is an assault on our divine purpose as stewards of the earth. Genesis 1-2. Maybe this whole GREEN element can be a great platform for us to step in on what is often seen as a secular issue and show that Christianity truly is Relevant to the issues of the world. Any thoughts out there?

33. Instituions....

With all this critiquing I am doing on the institution, I want to insert some objective thoughts about them along the way so I do not paint my self as being too short sighted. Withdrawing from the conventional church model and doing this organic church thing has given me the time and opportunity to reflect on all the negative dynamics that institutions can exert on people when it comes to life in general. But specifically, an application was intentionally being made to Kingdom stuff as well. These insights and applications are coming from several sources really.

First, there is my experience in the IC, along with the many experiences of other people I have had the privilege of conversating with along the way. As a person who has been employed by various IC's for 10 years, I have had the opportunity to see the institutional dynamics play themselves out on both ends of the spectrum's. Sort of a front row seat and a back stage pass if you will. Second, there is the book realm. I began to read books like The Social Construction of Reality, The Shaping of Things to Come, The Spider and the Star Fish etc. These books gave me a language to express a lot of the ideas running around in my head. They also served to open up new horizons, while at the same time focusing my attention on key elements of institutions.

Initially, I was all about critiquing the IC and institutions in general. I had the reactionary thing going on with a sort of cynical posture towards anything that smelled of institution. However, the more time I spend thinking about institutions, the more I am beginning to develop a more objective paradigm for the role of institutions in the Kingdom.

The foundations for this objectivity is, ironically enough, provided by the metaphor of The Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is to invade all aspects of life. It is an all encompassing action and presence in the world. Now think about this: Institutions are a reality of life and they are not going any where. They will always be around for a number of reasons. So if the Kingdom is to permeate all of reality, then there has to be something redeemable about institutions. As a neutral entity, they have the potential to be harnessed for Kingdom agendas.

So the real question becomes, how do we realign the institution to serve the needs of the Kingdom? This is a daunting question with many subheadings and footnotes. It is a necessary question none the less. We have to grapple with this if we are to be Kingdom people. We can not afford to withdraw into ideological communes where we mutually reinforce one another's ideas of organic, simple or house church ecclesiologies. We need to grapple with questions of organization, leadership and how these interact with organic systems, simple networks and the like.

My good friend Mickey has perceived God to have been taking us away from the institutional model so we can detox from the funk. He sees God doing this for the specific purpose of relearning what it means to be intimate with God and other people. After this crucial phase, we are ultimately repositioned in relationship to organization, structures, forms etc. Invested with new life from the Spirit, we can approach the "necessary evil" of organization with new eyes and new perspectives.

A sign of this new life can be seen in our struggle to find language to express what we see. We wrestling to find terms, phrases, and metaphors that adequately describe what this new angle we see. Really, what most of us are doing is taking concepts and principles found in sociology and anthropology and baptizing them into Christian dialogue. These concepts have already been plowed in the fields of sociology and anthropology. We just need to go and harvest them.

The institution and organization in general needs to be realigned and re framed from those who are already immersed in the organic model of being the church. It is out of a seasoned cycle of being in this organic environment that fresh, fruitful, and objective dialogue about this whole topic can be engaged. Everyone needs to detox and deconstruct the institutional beast within us. But after this tearing down has been done, we need to check out of the detox facility and re engage this vital topic of organization.

This engagement of organization will need to be in done in conversation with certain disciplines. Theological, ecclesiological, historical, along with anthropological and sociological fields need to be thrown into the mix for a well informed approach. This task will involve networking, a skill many of us are excited about developing and using.

32. Leadership Issues

I can remember the first time I started having questions about the leadership model of elders. Growing up in the Church of Christ, the elder/deacon model was all I was exposed to, and most of the time it just made sense to do it that way. In my tribe, elders (presbyters), Bishops/Overseers (episcopos) and Shepherds are all the same thing. They are functional words that describe the same position. Employing the "flat" approach to scripture, or should I say, fundamentalist hermeneutic, Titus 1, I Timothy 3, and the book of Acts were thrown together to make a unifying case for the elder model. The only problem with this is that there are some real inconsistencies with this approach.

For one, Cecil hook, in his book Free In Christ, highlights the fact that the two lists in Titus and Timothy are not identical. In Titus it mentions that an elder should have "believing children" but it says nothing about this in I Timothy. Neither one of them had access to each others letters, so we can assume that Timothy allowed men to be elders that did not have believing children while Titus did not. This scenario of the qualifications of elders should throw up some red flags to those who want to rush into a universalized approach to the leadership structure of the church. If the elder model was to be the only model for the church, you would think that there would be a little bit more clear and symmetrical listings of their qualifications throughout scripture.

Second, H. Von Campenhausen, in his book Ecclesiastical Authority and Spiritual Power, makes an excellent point when he points to the diversity of models in the NT documents. He notes that Acts, I Peter, James and Revelation mention only elders but not Bishops nor deacons. Philippians mentions Bishops and deacons but not elders. I Corinthians mentions none of it at all. This should spark a curiosity about why, if the elder/deacon model is the only model to be used for the church, is there not a uniform presentation in scripture about it. Why such varied spotting's in the NT?

Third, the 1st century church was thoroughly embedded in a patriarchal society that gravitated towards men for leadership "positions." This is not to say that women did not have leadership positions in the 1st century church. (This is a whole nother discussion) It is merely to say that the presence of patriarchy should immediately caustion us when attempting to take narratives like the book of Acts, and Epistles, which are written with this same historical context, and Pastorals, which are highly contextual and occasional documents, as prescriptive for all times and places. Patriarchy had an enormous effect on the church and the course it took in organizing itself for the long haul.

Fourth, the elder model was recycled from the synagogue. There, men were endowed with dignity and honor by virtue of their age. Some elders were elected to carry specific responsibilites in the synagogue, but not all elders were elected to do this. The average elder enjoyed a certain status of respect and leadership within the community. But it was organically bestowed on him by the community, not through a democratic nomination and election process. Neither was there an official ordination ceremony to induct them into an "office". This would have been so in the church as well.

Fifth, it is interesting that the only place you see lists for qualifications of elders is in Gentile contexts where godliness needed to be spelled out for the new comers into the faith.

The early church adopted the synagogue model of elders in a natural organic way. For them it was a no brainer. Sort of a self organizing dynamic if you will, with certain apostolic impulses operating in the background. If this is true, then we instantly are thrown into the discussion as to wether or not the synagogue model of elders was divine in origin. I tend to think it was a cultural manifestation of the Israelite tradition and served as midwife to the church in the preservation and stabilization of the communities of the 1st century in all their turbulence with persecution and heresy. That being said, the elder model was the seed of hierarchy, as Clement portrays, which rapidly developed in the late 1st century and early 2nd century.

All of this is a dead give away that the discussion of leadership models for the church is not a cut and dry issue. Nort is it purely a matter of uncovering the "original model". We have to give proper attention to the socio-historical-cultural context of both the letters and the 1st century church as whole. There is not a unified voice for leadership structures in the NT. So where does this leave us? That is for the next blog!

31. The Role of Institutions in the Kingdom

The role of institutions in the Kingdom: A short philosophy.



Innovation is rarely embraced with eagerness within religious institutional contexts. This is because the nature of institutions are fundamentally predisposed to self preservation. The prophetic critique that often creates the combustible environment for innovation is often snuffed out by the aristo and bureau-crats of the institution. This has made for an interesting dilemma for the apostle. Often scorned or perceived to be a threat to the established order, they have no other choice but to launch out with entrepreneurial passion, founding new, and often more relevant, communities, ministries and churches. This bold and courageous venture is commonly entered into without the blessing of the institution, both in word and in resources. This makes for a difficult start. (But it sure empowers faith in the living God who supplies all our needs!)



It seems that when we approach this dilemma, we always assume the existence of the IC is a given. Sort of a taken for granted notion that the IC is always a part of the equation, that apostles always emerge from with in the institutional context. Almost as if the institutional church (IC) is the mother environment from which these giftings owe their emergence. It is true that the apostle is teased into action by the frustrating dynamics of the institutional context. But these vital gifts in the body do not have to have such a dysfunctional, reactionary beginning.

I want to suggest that apostles can emerge out of organic communities in a much healthier way. Simple Church is a great environment for the apostolic gifting to not only operate, but flourish. In my past experience with the IC, apostles emerge only after they are vomited out by the institution. This happens for various reasons, but primarily because the institution can not stomach the kind of innovation that apostles seek after.

An organic community is much more conducive for the apostolic function for several reasons. In an organic, simple community, there is no building to keep funded. There is no paid staff to keep. There tends to be less concern about self preservation of an entity or established order of things. In this type of environment, apostles are free to innovate, explore and pioneer new and exciting things for God without threatening every ones "stuff". Without the institutional dynamic of self preservation at work, new and innovative efforts can move forward without bureaucratic opposition from the powers that be. The institution is not there to call into question and frustrate the efforts of apostolic innovation.

So where does that leave institutions? Do they still have a place in the Kingdom? One of the major faults of the IC is it tries to embody the full spectrum of the Kingdom within the confines of an institution. This is impossible! Most of the metaphors used by Jesus to describe the Kingdom are organic. Fruit, Yeast, Seeds, Trees. As such, the Kingdom can be expected to find its most vibrant expression in organic environments.

That being said, the Kingdom, by its very nature as the rule of God, requires engagement with all aspects of life. Institutions are a reality that will never go away. This means that the Kingdom will interact and utilize institutions. So I am not promoting an anti-institution approach to Kingdom life. What I am promoting is a repositioning, a re-framing, or as my buddy Patrick would say, a re-aligning of the institution as it relates to Kingdom tasks.


Instead of viewing the role of institutions as the primal facilitators of the entire spectrum of Kingdom activity, they should take on a more focused role of specialization in Kingdom tasks. For example, starting a Hope Pregnancy Center, a Community Garden, a Youth Center for at risk youth etc. As institutions, they will be susceptible to all the trappings of institutional dynamics. But they key difference is that they are not trying to be the end all expression of the Kingdom. They are nor broadcasting themselves as striving to be the full embodiment of the Kingdom. They are specific, focused efforts to embody the Kingdom in specific ways.

What I am saying is that we need to turn the whole thing on its head. The spontaneous, organic, fluid environment of Simple Church can be a breeding ground for the birth of new and innovative communities, including institutions that have specific Kingdom tasks. Apostles do not have to be the step children of the IC, or the refugee poster children of missionary societies. Institutions do not have to be shunned or hopelessly tolerated by Simple Church. They can be an expression of Kingdom tasks, having their origins in the fertile evironment of organic communities.

30. The Process of Institutionalization

The Process of Instiutionalization (PI) is a complex phenomenon. While looking into this topic, there have been several times that I have sat back and wondered "How deep does the rabbit hole go?" This topic can be approached from so many different angles and has so many nuances that it is difficult to give a "one size fits all" description of the PI. For example, an individual may experience the PI on a personal level long before the group takes on an institutional feel or look. This personal dynamic requires a whole different diagram and discussion. (forthcoming hopefully.) This is also true from the other perspective. An individual can remain "uninstitutionalized" well into the life of a group that has been officially institutionalized.

Having said all of that, there are some fundamental elements to the PI that have a somewhat universal presence. This diagram is an overly simplified view of some of these elements in the process. The PI can happen on an individual level far before it manifests itself and is embodied in a group context..The pyramid is inverted to represent the small beginnings of a group of about 10-15 people. The increase in group size is represented by the expanding width of the pyramid as it moves upward. The next level would be 15-50 people. The next would be 50-200 and so on. Use your imagination.

The size of a group is critical to the development of the PI. As a group expands in size, it is propelled into the different phases of the process. This increase in the size of a group brings with it certain needs that demand a response from the group. Who is going to be responsible for __________? How will we accomplish __________? What about ____________? When the needs of the group reach this level of complexity, it forces the group to divvy out the work to preassigned roles. As a result, a hierarchy is either formally, or naively, informally created. As the group grows even larger, the needs of the group outweigh the capacity of the individuals to address them. (hi amanda) This is when the need for full or part time staff arises. This is usually accompanied with a central facility out of which to operate, if that has not already been acquired.

This process outlined above, though vague and lacking all the elements of this complex phenomenon, gives us a good framework to discuss the tipping point of institutionalization for a community. From a sociological perspective, once habits are formed by the group, with a certain degree of frequency, say once a week, then they are already flirting with institutionalization. Repetition is the fertile soil from which the seeds of institutionalism sprout. This is an important factor to keep in mind when we talk about the "institutional church" as opposed to the "organic church."

I would like to suggest a subtle, yet significant word to introduce into the conversation.

Instituionality.

This term acknowledges the fact that, despite our best efforts, there will always be an element of the PI in our communities. Because we will undoubtedly develop patterns, habits and even rhythms of behavior in our communities, we will always be flirting with institutionalism. There will always be, from a sociological perspective, an institutional element in our communities. This is true without even addressing the size issue and all the complex dynamics that surface when a house church goes from one group to three groups or goes from 10 to 20. I think we would all agree that when we say "The Institutional Church" (IC) we are coining a term to describe what churches have become as a result of the PI. For most of us, our experience with the IC has led us to encounter some of the worst repercussions of institutional dynamics. Hierarchical control, abuse of authority, money centered, self-preservation, ritualism, traditionalism, corporate-ized ethics and methods in discipleship and evangelism etc. To call this type of church an IC is exactly on target in my opinion. But my word of caution to us is that we not become naive to the fact that there are also elements of institutionality in our own communities. Naivety on our part in this area will make us susceptible to becoming the very thing we have fled. Instead of being a traditional IC, we will be an IC with a different look.

The discerning question then is not "Are we institutional?" but "What degree of institutionality is our group experiencing?" Or more specifically, "What is the tipping point, and how do we stay organic and fluid enough so that we do not fall prey to the monstrous demands of the institutional dynamics?" (Maybe some one needs to come up with a top 10 list of "You know your institutional if....) The real goal is to avoid the constraints and limitations that come from being institutional. This will of course mean that we will want to avoid becoming a full blown institution. But the distinction I am calling for has to do with identity and focus. Our focus and identity come from the gospel and embodying this gospel in the world, not from being "non-institutional." I may be stating the obvious, but it is worth saying none the less. Being organic and non-institutional is a tool for the mission, not the mission itself. There is a big difference.

This tipping point in the PI will be different for every group. It will not be a clear cut and predictable line that can be laid over top of random communities in a universalized fashion. It will ultimately need to be communally discerned through objective analysis, intuition, and the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Trust me, those who are phobics about institutionalism, of which I am one, will sound the alarm when we have begun to progress (or should I say digress) into heightened levels of institutionality. You know the deal.

As rule of thumb, staying small goes a long way in safe guarding the PI. I don't say this as a cry for huddling up in our own little worlds and not engaging the mission of God. But can't we be on mission with God and still be organic, fluid, flexible and free from institutional constraints? I would say yes! Thank God yes! This is what the Simple/House Church movement is saying at this moment. It is an experiment for us personally, and I am loving every minute of it!

29. The Bureaucratization of the Church

Check out this quote from Peter Berger's book The Sacred Canopy. This guy even fore casted the seeker sensitive movement and the "marketing" of religious goods by churches to a pluralistic society. He was writing in the 70's!!!!


"The contemporary situation of religion is thus characterized by a continual bureaucratization of the religious institutions. Both their internal and their external social relations are marked by this process. Internally, the religious institutions are not only administered bureaucratically, but their day to day operations are dominated by the typical problems and “logic” of bureaucracy. Externally, the religious institutions deal with other social institutions as well as with each other through the typical forms of bureaucratic interaction. “Public relations” with the consumer clientele, “lobbying” with the government, “fund raising” with both government and private agencies, multifaceted involvements with the secular economy (particularly through investment)- in all these aspects of their “mission” the religious institutions are compelled to seek “results” by methods that are, of necessity, very similar to those employed by other bureaucratic structures with similar problems. Very importantly, the same bureaucratic logic applies to the dealings of the several religious institutions with each other.
Bureaucracies demand specific types of personnel. This personnel is specific not only in terms of its functions and requisite skills, but also in terms of its psychological characteristics. Bureaucratic institutions both select and form the personnel types they require for their operation. This means that similar types of leadership emerge in the several religious institutions, irrespective of the traditional patterns in this matter. The requirements of bureaucracy override such traditional differentiations of religious leadership as “prophet” versus “priest”, “scholar" versus "saint,” and so forth. Thus it does not matter very much whether a certain bureaucratic functionary comes out of a protestant tradition of “prophetic” ministry or a Catholic tradition of “priestly” one – in either case, he must above all adapt himself to the requirements of his bureaucratic role." Berger, Peter. Sacred Canopy p. 139-140


Especially interesting to me is his observation about the nature of intstitutional demands for personnel. If we apply this to the gifting in the body of Christ, just think about how many gifts are being wasted and under developed in the institutional church. the very nature of the institution does not allow giftings to operate. It is a black hole that is concerned about self preservation and maintenance. Doesn't it strike you odd that an institution can pretty much function without ever drawing on the rich fund of APEPT giftings?

28. Paul as Interpreter of the Gospel

If we apply this definition of authority to Paul, the POWER would of course be the gospel, and the EMPOWERMENT would happen in the community which the apostle establishes through the preaching/teaching on the saving significance the GOSPEL. Paul, then, would initially be the link between the community and the gospel. This seen in Romans 10:17ff where Paul says that the link between the lost and the word of Christ is the preacher.




But Paul is no mere consultant. His concern and anxiety for his communities forbids him from exiting backstage for a quick get away. It is true that his role as link between the gospel and the lost only lasts until someone obeys the gospel. But at that critical point, the relationship between Paul and those who trust in the gospel is immediately transformed. His initial role of link mutates into that of a father




This synchronized shift from link to father happens as a result of the peoples new found relationship to the gospel. Once a person or group of people accepted the message of the gospel, their relationship to the gospel, and therefore to Paul, changed. This point is critical in framing the discussion about apostolic authority. While Paul retains his unique apostolic experiences as noted above, he is still simultaneously subordinated to the same gospel which he preached and which the new community has obeyed. Listen to Shutz on this:




The gospel is not an exclusive apostolic possession. On the contrary, the apostle is owned and authorized by the gospel. He does not stand as a unique and exclusive bridge between the gospel and the Christian, between the power he interprets and the goal of that interpretation, the Church. He mediates between the gospel and the Church to be sure; he links cause and effect. But all Christians participate directly in the gospel itself. They do not stand in Paul or some other apostle, but in the gospel. They were not baptized in him, but in Christ. This has specific implications for understanding Paul’s concept of apostolic authority. Just as the apostle must be understood in reference to his own autobiography and the relationship between his ‘self’ and that power which shapes it, so he must be understood in the context of a community in which every member has an autobiography which embodies his membership in Christ.Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority p. 249

THE APOSTOLIC ROLE IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL AND THE COMMUNITY OF GOD

In this diagram, it is important to notice that the apostle and the community both participate and are subordinate to the gospel. Both parties receive power from the gospel while simultaneously being vulnerable to its demands. Paul is first a disciple, and then an apostle. To get this out of order is to overlook the rich context out of which Paul functions as an apostle. His vulnerability to the death and resurrection of Jesus as a disciple is the foundational paradigm out of which he functions as an apostle. There is no bureaucratic separation between discipleship and apostleship. Both are intimate expressions of dying and rising with Christ. In other words, it is Paul’s cruciformity that shapes the character of his apostolicity. As such, when it comes to his relationship with other disciples, and even the communities he establishes, he is equally accountable to the claims of the gospel. This egalitarian relationship to the gospel and its implications for discipleship sets a healthy framework by which the nature of apostolic authority can be discerned.


When apostolic authority is defined by the gospel, it has the ability to exert its own constraints on the fleshly tendencies of authoritarianism, egotism, imperialism, manipulation etc. The gospel is not only the paradigm for discipleship; it is the paradigm for leadership. Understood in this way, leadership is an extension of discipleship, both of which are to be cruciform in nature.

27. Authority as Interpretation of Power

27. Let’s begin with a definition of authority by Wayne Meeks from the introduction to Shutzs’ book Paul and the Anatomy of Apostolic Authority

The central point, which is the motif of this book, is that authority is best understood as the interpretation of power. That is, the authoritative person, in this case the apostle, calls upon the willing acceptance of his power by the followers by providing for them an interpretive framework, in the form of a master narrative or a pregnant constellation of metaphors, that makes sense of power that they themselves may experience or have experienced. In a sense, then, the interpretive process makes that power available to them. The interpretation of power is thus also an application of power. p. xxi.

An illustration of this definition of authority can be seen in the field of business consulting. When a company faces certain challenges and obstacles on their way to success, they tend to hire a business consultant to come in and help them through key phases of their development. The consultant will survey the business, conduct marketing analysis, study the business as an organizational entity, etc. When the consultant meets with the top dogs of the company, she will offer a successful model, plan or set of business principles for the company to implement.

In essence, what the consultant is doing is an act of interpretation. She is taking the wisdom and expertise she has gained from books, life experiences, collected data etc., and is interpreting this data in light of the companies unique circumstances. If the top dogs understand and ascribe to her proposals, she becomes an authority to their company. It should be noted however that, from the company’s perspective, this authority does not yet exist until they understand and decide to accept her proposals. This means that authority is a relational dynamic which is dependent upon the willingness of others to confer it.

This relational dynamic of authority gives it a sort of fragile quality. This is primarily due to it being dependent upon people’s willingness to accept another’s interpretation. Because authority is conferred upon an individual by another, it is within the ‘others’ ability to disrobe the individual of their authority. This divesting of authority would take place as a refusal to ascribe to the persons interpretations. A rejection of an interpretation, then, is invariably a rejection of authority. This rejection of authority brings with it a severing of connection to the source of power which the interpreter is trying to mediate.

Using Shultz’s definition of authority, power, in this consulting illustration would be represented as success for the company. What success would look like and how to get there is an act of interpretation by the consultant. Once the company subscribes to her interpretation, she becomes an authority to them. What this would look like initially can be seen in this diagram.

In this initial phase of the relationship, the consultant stands as a link between the company and success. From where the company sits, she is an exclusive channel to the access of power. This qualifies the relationship between the company and the consultant as that of giver and receiver. The company is in the position of receiving from the consultant by virtue of the consultants’ relationship to power. This places the consultant in a critical role. She must be able to both accurately interpret and fully communicate this power if the company is to 1. Ascribe to her interpretation and 2. Be empowered for success.

26. Pauline and Contemporary Apostles. What's the Difference?

26. What's the difference? As the apostolic role becomes increasingly utilized and referenced in the EMC, House Church, Simple Church, Organic Church etc., there are a number of questions that are emerging in my own mind about this indispensable gift in the body of Christ.

One of these questions has to do with apostolic authority. All would agree that the Apostle Paul is in his own league when it comes to being an apostle. This is true for several reasons.


1. His EXPERIENCE of the Risen Lord appeared to him on the Damascus road and personally commissioned him and sent (apostled) him to the Gentiles.

2. His PROXIMITY to the founding events of the gospel makes his situation especially unique. His social and historical location in reference to the death and resurrection of Jesus, along with is relationships to the other 12 apostles point to a unique access to the Jesus tradition and the original historical witnesses.

3. His SIGNS of an apostle are spoken of as one of the identifying characteristics of his apostleship. No matter where you land on the spectrum when it comes to the miraculous giftings of the Spirit, Paul certainly occupies a unique position in this spectrum as it relates to the relationship between signs and apostleship.

4. His PNEUMATIC participation in forming the texts which later became canonized by the Christian community. This is a wholly different discussion, but for us it will do to say that Paul’s role in producing texts which later became a part of the canon make his apostolic role all the more complexly distant from our own.

These distinctions, while not exhaustive, should be kept in the background when referencing Paul as a paradigm for the apostolic today. While the tasks and roles of the contemporary apostolic do overlap with Paul's apostolic role, Paul nonetheless occupies a unique place, a penthouse suite per se, when it comes to being apostolic. Some more discussion needs to be had on this topic. I will see what I can come up with on this. Any suggestions out there?