Restoration Christianity and Christian Unity

In a recent meeting with other pastors, I was asked about the strengths and weaknesses of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. As I considered the question, it became clear to me that our strengths and our weaknesses are the same: our commitment to Jesus and to the Bible, or our attitude toward Jesus and the Bible.*
    
Historically, Restoration Movement Churches are very committed both to following Jesus and taking the Bible seriously. This commitment brings a desire for restoring New Testament Christianity and the vision of Christian unity as depicted in the New Testament. This vision causes us to seek truth in the Scripture so that we are faithful to King Jesus. Although we’ve never done this perfectly, our intent has always been faithfulness to Jesus and revering the Bible as the inspired word of God.
    
At the same time, we have presumably subordinated faithfulness to Jesus to getting the Bible right. Restoring New Testament Christianity requires “rightly dividing the word” (cf. 2 Tim 2:15, KJV). Failure to do so is tantamount to being in error and rejecting the apostolic teaching of Jesus in Scripture. This approach also means that unity requires uniformity, a pursuit that comes at the expense of relationships. Condemnation and disfellowshipping the “errant brother” are used to control others and keep churches within the party lines of sound doctrine, or our unwritten creed.
    
However, loving others is what lies at the heart of Christian living. Jesus himself said, “I give you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other” (John 13:34 CEB). Jesus gave this command after he washed the feet of his disciples, including one disciple who would betray him and another who would deny him. If Jesus had only known how to disfellowship them… Or maybe we still need to learn from Jesus what it means to love each other.
    
Lest I am misunderstood, I do believe we should always seek to follow Jesus, and we should do so by taking Scripture seriously. But as we do so, we must also learn how to love each other, even when we disagree. We will never agree with each other on every matter. 
    
The desire to follow Jesus and take the Bible seriously is honorable. I hope we never lose that desire, but we also need to value loving each other and embodying the oneness (unity) that we already have in Christ. Therefore, our desire for unity must include openness to differing views. In fact, discussing differing views can even sharpen our minds and bring us closer together. Ultimately, very few differences are worth losing family over.
    
Grace is especially necessary on social media where many of us find it easy to respond in an unnecessary, even hurtful, manner. I know from personal experience how social media can be a helpful medium for building connections and friendships; I also know how easy it is to eviscerate someone with one unwise comment, whether we intend to do so or not. 
    
Unity in Christ is not something we can manufacture on our own. Rather, it is a gift of grace from God that we must embrace. Doing so requires love to be fleshed out in the practices of humility, patience, forgiveness and yes, even tolerance of each other even when we disagree.
    
May we all remember that even in our disagreements we must love one another as Jesus loves us!

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*This article was originally written for Common Grounds Unity, published on Saturday, April 3, 2021.

Fellowship in Christ: Grace Received, Grace Extended

A common practice among all congregations within the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement is weekly participation in the Lord’s Supper.* Although once viewed simply as a doctrine that must be obeyed based upon one example of breaking bread on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7), many of our churches have rightfully moved beyond the legalistic approach.  

    
That said, we still see the value in coming together to share in this Lord’s Supper or Eucharist meal. Accompanied by songs, prayers, and time spent in the Word through readings of Scripture and preaching, we still accept this invitation to gather together around the table of our Lord, Jesus Christ. 
    
If we read through the gospels, particularly the Gospel of Luke, we see how Jesus created space for people at the table. From the religious authorities to his disciples and even the “sinners and tax-collectors,” Jesus welcomed all these people to fellowship with him. This hospitality was a way in which Jesus extended the grace of God to both Jews and Gentiles, which pointed to his own death and resurrection so that all might indeed share in this fellowship. 
    
Two-thousand years later, some are still asking who gets to come to the Lord’s table?  Behind the question is an awareness that not everyone shares the same beliefs on any number of different issues, some having to do with matters of Christian doctrine and others having to do with politics, social-cultural challenges, etc… It’s easy to start drawing lines of inclusion and exclusion. Interestingly, we tend to draw these lines so as to always include ourselves. As a result, we see division and wonder how we can build unity. It’s as if we believe that reconciliation is our work rather than what God has accomplished in Christ. 
    
This is where we seem to miss what is happening at the Lord’s Table. When we receive the bread and wine that represents the body and blood of Jesus Christ, we are receiving the same bread and wine that Jesus served to his disciples. Jesus served Peter, who would deny knowing Jesus; and, Judas, who would betray Him. He served the other disciples also, who would all desert Him. Jesus extended his grace to all of his disciples without drawing any lines. What they did with his grace was in their hands, just as it is in ours too. Although Judas turned away from grace he received, the others didn’t and we know what they did with it because we are all beneficiaries of the way they extended the grace they received from Jesus. 
    
So, when we receive the bread and wine, we are receiving the grace of God extended to us even though we too are sinners and are undeserving of such fellowship. Because of that, rather than drawing lines, we can and must extend that grace to others regardless. Such fellowship, and the unity it expresses, is the gracious hospitality of welcoming others without distinction. But this oneness is not something we do as though we are manufacturing reconciliation and unity ourselves. As it was when Jesus first invited his disciples to receive the bread and wine, this is the grace of God that we receive and therefore that which we extend — fellowship in Christ. 

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* This blog post originally appeared as a small article on the Common Grounds Unity website, published on November 28, 2020.

Can We Change The Way Churches Seek Ministers?

I’ve had numerous ministry friends that have been fired. I too was once fired, even though I wasn’t involved in any illegal, immoral, or unethical activity. The decision came as a shock to my family and I as well as to the church. Ten months prior to this my family and I had spent a weekend with this church, with me preaching on Sunday and then receiving a call from the elders asking me to come serve the church as a minister. But now, only three weeks after my family and I were finally able to move a nine-hundred miles across country to serve with this church, I was terminated immediately.

As you might imagine, being fired left was difficult. Three weeks prior to this, the church was having a welcome fellowship for us and now I was fired. The decision didn’t just hurt me. It hurt my wife and children. I also know it was upsetting to the church too, as almost every member was just as shocked as I was. Now there is more to the story but I’m sharing this to suggest that the was many Churches of Christ go about “hiring and firing” ministers is wrong and needs to change.

Like seriously, needs to change. I say this especially for the sake of my fellow ministers of the gospel serving among Churches of Christ who have also been fired for reasons having nothing to do with any illegal, immoral, or unethical activities.

The traditional approach that Churches of Christ take in finding ministers, which is still very common, involves placing a “minister needed” announcement on a job board. Most of these boards are found on the websites of universities affiliated with the Churches of Christ. The announcement is meant to solicit resumes from interested ministers, resulting in a pool of candidates for consideration. Then either the elders or a selected search committee will identify the most qualified of the candidates and perhaps after a couple of telephone conversations or an initial phone interview, the top two or three candidates will be brought in to visit the church. This visit usually occurs over the weekend, which means the church has a few days (at best) to evaluate the ministers. The minister and family have the same time to decide if the church and local community is a good fit for them. At the end of the day, it’s easy for this process to become a talent show with whichever minister performs the best receiving the call to come serve as the minister. Should the minister accept the invitation, the minister is hired.

Churches of Christ, we have a problem.

Seeking a minister to serve with a church should not be a hiring process conducted much like a company hires a sales rep or new business manager. It certainly shouldn’t be a “dog and pony” show where the top three candidates are brought in for a visit to face off in what amounts to a talent show of who can preach the best sermon. The vocation of ministry is a sacred vocation and should be treated as such.

Most churches seeking a minister to come serve with their church want to rightfully talk about finding the minister that God is calling. Since that’s the case, let’s give space and time for God to work in the process. That means the process of finding the minister God is calling to serve with the church involves discernment, which takes a lot of time that is saturated with prayer and conversation. It’s a time of prayer and conversation that the church needs to have with each other but also with those ministers they are giving consideration too. The reality is that both the church and minister should be discerning, listening to each other over a period of time so that God can reveal to the church and minister whether he is calling the minister to serve with the church.

Because the minister is called by God to serve, there isn’t any reason for quickly dismissing the minister except in the case of illegal, immoral, and unethical conduct. Even in the case of illegal, immoral, and unethical conduct, the decision to dismiss should be discerned rather than automatic. If God has called the minister to serve with the church, then what right does the church, via its elders or leadership team, have to dismiss the minister without a period of discernment to ensure that it is the right decision. Likewise, the minister shouldn’t be so quick to resign without discerning this decision as well (more on that later).

Don’t misunderstand me. There are times when there needs to be a ministry transition but when it seems so, I believe this should be discerned with the entire leadership team or elders and minister together. Talk together about the problems and what needs to happen. Perhaps this results in some meaningful time where the problems are resolved without any transition. However, after much discernment (prayer and conversation), if it does seem that a transition is necessary, then neither the church nor the minister is blind-sided by the decision. Perhaps both the church and minister can agree then on a transition process that is fair for both sides, especially the minister whose family has needs (financial, emotional, etc…) that cannot just be abruptly disregarded.

Churches of Christ, we have a problem with the way ministers are selected to serve with churches. The problem will continue as long as the selection process is viewed as an “employment” decision rather than a calling blessed by the Lord and therefore in submission to the Lord and each other. When the ministry is simply viewed as an employment arrangement, both ministers and churches can make decision the employment status without submitting that decision to the Lord and each other first.

Now I’ll confess… Before I understood this, I served with a couple of churches and when things were not going the way I thought they would, I announced my resignation. As soon as another opportunity came along, I submitted my resignation and made this decision without ever asking the leaders to discern with me whether God was still calling me to serve with their church. Was there some problems that made the ministry difficult? Yes… problems with both the church and with me. However, had I invited the leaders into a discernment process, through prayer and conversation God might have helped us to see a way forward together that would have resulted in more fruitful ministry. The same goes with churches too.

In October of 2017 I received a call from the Newark Church of Christ in Newark, Delaware informing me that someone had been recommended me to them as their next minister. When I informed them that I was interested, we began a period of discernment together that lasted almost six months. Over that time, we had numerous conversations interviewing each other. The search committee spoke with people that could tell them more about me and I spoke with people that could tell me more about them. By March of 2018 I was convinced that God was calling me to serve with this church and hoping that the church shared this discernment. They did and I received a call from the shepherds inviting my family and I too visit so that they could commend me to the church as their next minister.

I’m so glad that I received that call. Ministry still has its challenges but I haven’t doubted once that God has called me to serve with the Newark Church. I love this church and consider it a privilege to serve as their pastor (yes, that’s the role most church ministers fulfill and that’s okay). I’m thankful for the process that Interim Ministry Partners (IMP), a partner of Hope Network, held both myself and the church through, with Phil Ware serving as the Interim Minister. The process of discernment gave both the church and I the space and time to see the sacredness of God’s work, letting God bring us together.

The only reason I’m sharing this is because we, the Churches of Christ, must take a better approach on both ends of the ministry transition. Calling a minister to serve with a church is a matter of discernment rather than just a “try out.” Likewise, when minister transitions do occur, they should be the result of discernment too rather than just a quick decision that comes out of nowhere. If we really want God to have a say, we’ll seek a better approach.

Welcoming Reconciliation: Embracing Christian Unity

As I have stated in the previous four posts, I believe the church is the living portrait of what God is accomplishing in Christ. That is, the church is the artwork of God which depicts the new creation God is bringing about in Christ. As the church follows Jesus in embodying the gospel by means of doing good works. the church serves as God’s poetry in motion. However, embodying the gospel means welcoming the reconciliation that God has accomplished in Christ but that is a challenge.

Whether we are talking about different races and ethnicities, different nationalities or  different Christian denominations, divisions and even hostility exist. That’s how it was for the Jews and Gentiles that Paul is writing too, that’s how its been in America, and in other parts of the world — past and present. Yet God has tore down these walls of division so that we can leave our racism, nationalism, and every other form of tribalism behind, if we’ll just see what God has done in Christ.

The apostle Paul says “Christ is our peace, He has made both Jews and Gentiles into one group” (Eph 2:14). The same is true for Blacks and Whites, Americans and foreigners, and even Democrats and Republicans or whatever affiliation we have. Christ is our peace, who has made us into one but we may never understand that if we don’t give our attention to what God has done in Christ, particularly in the crucifixion of Christ.

By giving our attention to the work of God in Christ, I don’t just mean reading the Bible more. Yes, read the Bible but remember that the Bible is like a window through which we are able to encounter the gospel Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God. Too many times people have failed to do this, turning the Bible into a weapon to justify prejudices and sectarianism. That’s why it’s not enough just to read our Bibles. We must read our Bible to encounter what God has accomplished in Christ. 

     “God has already accomplished reconciliation that we speak of — oneness and unity in Christ. It is an ontological reality already in existence, not something we must achieve but that which we must receive.”

We know from other writings of Paul that righteousness or justification is based on faith in what God has done in Christ. That is, having a right relationship with God is a result of what God has done (grace) through the faithfulness of Christ which we trust in (faith). Realizing this, knowing how God has graciously made us a part of his new creation, then who are we to hold any sense of animosity, superiority, and exclusivity towards someone else because their skin is a different tone then ours? Knowing this grace of God, who are we to deny fellowship to another believer because they gather for worship in a church building that has a different name on the marquee than our church building?

In Christ, God has already created “one new person out of the two, making peace. He reconciled them both as one body to God by the cross, which end the hostility to God” (Eph 2:15-16). God has already accomplished reconciliation that we speak of — oneness and unity in Christ. It is an ontological reality already in existence, not something we must achieve but that which we must receive. The question for us is whether we’ll welcome such reconciliation. Will we welcome the peace of Christ that allows us to live as one with God and each other, saying no to the wall of tribalism, be it based on our race, our national origin, or even our denominational affiliation?

I’ll be the first to admit that welcoming reconciliation isn’t easy. That’s why we have to be honest with the truth. That means first we have to be honest with the truth of ourselves, whatever animosity, superiority, and exclusivity resides in our hearts. Once we can be honest with that sinful truth, then we can be honest with the Truth that is Christ by receiving the grace God extends to us and extending that grace to each other. As Christena Cleveland says, “We must do the difficult work of examining our hearts and reflecting on our attitudes toward other groups in order to uncover, uproot, and repent of the deep biases that self-esteem and identity processes have ingrain in us. Then we must affirm our truest, common identities as members of the body of Christ” (Disunity in Christ, p. 111).

So what is does it mean to welcome reconciliation, embracing our unity as one body that God has made us to be in Christ? To answer this question, let me first say that I don’t believe welcoming reconciliation means becoming colorblind in a manner that denies the reality of our race and ethnicity. (read Nijay Gupta’s article Neither White Nor Black”?: Paul’s Case Against Being Colorblind). Similarly, I don’t believe reconciliation demands social homogeneity, which means we can disagree on politics and still be siblings in Christ. I also don’t believe unity is uniformity in matters of Christian faith, in which we must agree with each other on every matter of doctrine and practice.

Then how do we welcome reconciliation and embrace our unity? Ephesians 4:2 says, “Conduct yourselves with all humility, gentleness, and patience. Accept each other with love.” I suggest this requires listening to each other and serving one another by submitting to one another and praying for each other. If you’re not sure, go read the rest of Ephesians. This is how we welcome reconciliation. It happens by treating each other as though we both belong together, all belonging to the household of God, as people saved by the grace of God who have become a temple which God dwells among though his Spirit.

A Gospel Affirmation: Christ is our peace. Yes, we are different skin colors and different nationalities but we call each other brother and sister in Christ and that signifies us God’s poetry in motion. That’s a living demonstration of what God has accomplished in Christ. Come November, we may cast different ballots but we’ll still regard each other with humility, gentleness, and patience and that signifies us God’s poetry in motion. That’s a living demonstration of what God has accomplished in Christ. As we read the Bible, we may disagree on  different passages of scripture but from our common confession “Jesus is Lord!” we’ll accept each other with love and that signifies us God’s poetry in motion. That’s a living demonstration of what God has accomplished in Christ.

That’s becoming reconciliation, because Christ is our peace.

Poetry In Motion: A Vision for Being Church

Two weeks ago I began a new message series with the Newark Church called Poetry In Motion. The series is about being the church based on what I regard as a visionary passage in terms of ecclesiology. According to Ephesians 2:10 “we are God’s accomplishment, created in Christ Jesus to do good things. God planned for those good things to be the way that we live our lives.”

There are a couple of points to note about this passage that have to do with the way we embody this visionary purpose here.

1. The says that “we are God’s accomplishment…” That’s how the Common English Bible renders the text. Other translations render the text saying we are “God’s handiwork” (NIV), “God’s workmanship” (ESV, KJV), or “God’s masterpiece” (NLT). The word in the original language is poiēma which is where we derive our English words “poem” and “poetry” from. It’s a word that describes a piece of art, like a sculpture, a painting, or even a poem. That’s why the New Jerusalem Bible renders the text saying that we are “God’s work of art…” The claim here, I believe, is that God’s intention for us is that we will be a living portrait of the new creation he is bringing about in Christ.
2. The good works we are created to do as our way of life is best understood in relation to the context which has to do with God making both Jews and Gentiles into one new community. So rather than just having an abstract idea of doing good, such as being a nice person, our good works nurture our fellowship with God and each other. Nurturing this fellowship does not mean agreement with each other on every issue, as unity is never about uniformity (which is virtually impossible). Instead, knowing the grace God has extended to us, we also extend that grace to others. That’s how we live as God’s accomplishment on display so that others will see there is hope beyond all the suffering, racism, and violence that exists around us.

This ecclesiological vision is what it means for local churches to live as God’s poetry in motion. Understood within the narrative of scripture, it’s historical arch and destination (telos), our ecclesiological vision is Christ-centered and kingdom-oriented. In other words, the church, both locally and universally, is a community in which the fulfillment of God’s redemptive mission in Christ is manifest.

I need to say more about the church as a manifestation of God’s redemptive mission in light of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement. This movement has focused on restoring the past of first-century ecclesiology. However, if the ecclesiological vision is about portraying God’s redemptive mission, then churches are to be a people in whom the future is discernible. This means that the embodiment of the gospel is proleptic reflection. It also means the purpose is not about restoring the past, first century or any other historical period. Instead, the church as God’s accomplishment of everything he has brought together—the things of heaven and of earth. In this regards, the church embodies the gospel as a living portrait so that others might begin to see what new creation is and will be.

This is what I mean then by describing the church as poetry in motion. The question is how do we go from the ideal to actually putting this vision into concrete practice. To answer that question, the series focuses on truth, healing, justice, and reconciliation and I will address these matters in subsequent blog posts. In short, when we can learn to be honest with the truth, then space opens for becoming communities in which healing, justice, and reconciliation can be practiced which then concretely becomes God’s poetry in motion.

Discipleship In Community: A Review

Like other church denominations in America, Churches of Christ are facing many challenges in the twenty-first century. While the tasks of ministry are the same as they have always been, the monumental shifts in culture have brought new challenges. In many ways, local congregations are facing a realization that the new social context is uncharted territory for which the maps used in navigating previous territory are obsolete. However, this doesn’t mean congregations are helpless and left blindly navigating their way forward. For uncharted territory, Tod Bolsinger says the first task in going forward is a recommitment to the core identity (Canoeing The Mountains, p. 94). As Christians, our core identity is a theological commitment and this is what Mark E. Powell, John Mark Hicks, and Greg McKinzie offer Churches of Christ in their new book Discipleship In Community: A Theological Vision for the Future.

Fresh off the press of Abilene Christian University Press, this book is 190 pages, divided into eight chapters and then followed by three responses as well as a couple of appendices. Though the three authors all teach theology at the academia level, the book is written in very accessible prose. With some basic familiarity of the Bible and Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement (SCRM) history, readers will easily follow along. As the title suggests, the book offers a vision for navigating the way forward by providing a theological framework that is focused on the formation of disciples within the local church. This framework is anchored in the historical Christian faith affirmed in both scripture and Christian tradition. On a personal note, I attended seminary with Greg McKinzie at Harding School of Theology in Memphis where we both had Mark E. Powell and John Mark Hicks as professors. So reading the book reminded me of some fond memories we all shared inside the classroom.

The core work of the book is within chapters two through eight and each chapter builds upon the previous. So rightfully, chapter two provides the theological foundation which is a Trinitarian understanding of of God which then opens space for the eschatological orientation of God’s mission that churches are called to participate in. Essential to such participation is reading the Bible as a practice “called theological interpretation of Scripture, as a way of encountering the living Word” (p. 70). This is a narrative approach that seeks to avoid both populism and perspicuity or the idea that anyone can pick up the Bible and rightfully understand scripture because the meaning is always self-evident. The authors intent is not to suggest that only people with theological education can understand the teaching of scripture. Rather, the point is that understanding the scriptures requires a relationship with God that results in character transformation, which is “to conform to the Spirit’s nature” (p. 81).

Having this Trinitarian foundation that is eschatologically oriented as churches engage in a narrative reading of scripture cultivates a framework for understanding what it means to be church. By church the authors have in mind the Believers Church tradition, which is associated with the Anabaptists but still confesses with the Nicene Creed that “the church is one, holy, universal (or catholic), and apostolic” (p. 94). This brings more clarity in understanding the place of the sacraments, Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, in the formation of disciples and what it means for local churches to live as participants in the mission of God.

The vision presented by Powell, Hicks, and McKinzie seek to incorporate the healthy aspects of the SCRM while challenging aspects of this tradition that need challenged. For example, their book encourages Churches of Christ in continuing to take scripture seriously as our Restoration tradition has historically sought to do. At the same time, while remaining respectful in tone, they are rightfully critical towards some of the Trinitarian views held within the SCRM and allow the greater Christian Tradition to correct these views. As hinted at earlier, readers will also find the three responses by Lauren Smelser White, Stanley Talbert, and Carson E. Reed helpful. I was especially appreciative of Reed’s response because while I too see the place of finding continuity with our past, I also see a need for some discontinuity if churches are to go forward on mission with God. A Reed mentions, “To point out such discontinuous spaces with regard to practical theology highlights the need for Churches of Christ to recognize that new strands of DNA may well be necessary for mission and ministry in the twenty-first century” (p. 179). In other words, Churches of Christ cannot realistically expect to find renewal through the formation of disciples if the practical outworking of theology  (theological praxis) among local churches remains the same. That’s doing the same thing while expecting different results, which we know is the classic definition of insanity.

One concern I have is what I believe is missing from the book and that is a chapter on the subject of Christology. The authors rightfully ground the foundation of discipleship within a Trinitarian understanding of God and they rightfully help us see that following Jesus is eschatologically oriented towards the future. However, because Churches of Christ are rightfully a people of scripture, the hermeneutical question of how we read the Bible so that we may participate in the mission of God as disciples matters. The answer to the hermeneutical question is answered in part by having a Trinitarian foundation and an eschatological orientation. However, the narrative of scripture is centered in Jesus Christ as the one who reveals God and his mission to us (cf. Jn 1:1-4, 14-18; Col 1:15, 19; Heb 1:2-3). Our participation in the mission of God as followers of Jesus and the moral/ethical formation that demands is centered in who Jesus, so that our lives are increasingly conformed to the life Jesus lived — his beliefs, values, and practices — which willing embraced the cross as the way of redemption. In my judgment, this book would be perfect with a chapter on Christology, explaining how the doctrine of Christ and the logic of the cross that Christ embraced should shape our reading of scripture and thus our formation as his disciples.

All said, I highly recommend Discipleship In Community for you to read. Powell, Hicks, and McKinzie provide a compelling theological vision for navigating the uncharted territory ahead of us. Knowing the three authors, I’m sure they would agree that this book should be read as a conversational prompt rather than holy writ and that is what a good book, such as this, should always do. So don’t wait. Instead, go purchase your copy and read.

Reflections on Church Leadership During the Covid-19 Coronavirus Pandemic

More than a month has passed since the church I serve, the Newark Church of Christ, decided to stop gathering together during this Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic. I must admit that when we first made the decision, I wondered what would become of our church. If we are not able to gather together for several months, I wondered if there would we even be a church left. Of course, as soon as this wave of anxiety came over me, so did my leadership reflexes.

The first rule of good leadership is don’t be anxious. Don’t panic and don’t give a foothold to the devil of anxiety. Yes, what we are going through makes for more difficulties but panicking amid anxiety either results in doing nothing or making an anxious decision. Neither of which is helpful and most likely would only make matters worse.

Like many churches, we began streaming online worship gatherings. However, as important as worship is, there is more to living as a church than just worship. If we’re to bear each others burdens, love our neighbors, and join in the work we see God doing—participating in the mission of God—then we remaining connected with each other was paramount.

So one of the things we’ve done as a church is begin including two short videos of different people from our church in each online streaming of worship on Sundays. These videos have allowed us to hear from each other and have helped remind us that we are a community, a family of believers called “church” in this life together. We have also began organizing online connection groups so that we could meet during the week for encouragement and continue growing in our formation as followers of Jesus. So using Zoom, Google Meet, etc… we spend some time checking in on what we are thankful for and concerned about, and then we spend some time in scripture but not just for the sake of Bible study. Instead, as we come to understand what God is teaching us in scripture, we want to embody that teaching in the way we live.

     “But I have been reminded that church is neither a building, place, or time. Church is people following Jesus and that’s what we are.”

In the meantime, our church still seeks to love our neighbors. Loving God and each other through worship and fellowship matters but so does serving and caring for people in our community. One opportunity was preparing sack lunches for people who might otherwise go hungry. Now our church is receiving shipments of masks that we are going to distribute within our community where there is need. And as we see other opportunities to the good works that God is doing, we’ll gladly do so as followers of Jesus.

Oh me of little faith… I initially wondered if we would even have a church after this pandemic. But I have been reminded that church is neither a building, place, or time. Church is people following Jesus and that’s what we are. So as a pastor, even though helping lead the church during this pandemic has required some adjustments, I have also realized that leadership is still much the same. That is, I serve as a minister of the gospel and so my role is still that of what any pastor’s role should be: helping the church hold to the gospel and allow the gospel to frame our way of life as a church. As that happens, we will continue participating in the mission of God as followers of Jesus.

What the results are is neither in our control nor something we need to worry about as church. The same is true for the church you serve among too. But perhaps the eyes of those living in our local towns and neighborhoods will be opened to see real community taking shape among our churches as we embody the gospel. And if that’s the case then we’ll see the church growing as it should, with the seed of the gospel pollinating and blooming anew.

One: On Mission with God

This is the prerecorded message that I preached for the Newark Church of Christ this past Sunday. The message, One: On Mission with God, is based on John 17:15-24 and is about the church being sanctified and sent as followers of Jesus united in our participation in the mission of God. The message is also challenges the notion that the basis of Christian unity is based on adhering to a list of dogmas and rules that have often divided churches, hindering their participation in the mission of God.

Reading The Bible as Followers of Jesus

What does it mean to be a Christian? I suppose if you stood on a street corner and asked ten random people that question, you would come away with eleven different responses. That’s probably true if you asked ten random people who profess the Christian faith as their religion. Just plug that question into your Google search engine and you’ll see how the answers to that question vary. In fact, the way Christians answer that question will reveal much about their own theological formation.

Anyhow, most people with even a vague familiarity of Christianity understand that being Christian has something to do with following Jesus. That’s correct too. According to all four of the canonical Gospels in the Bible, Jesus begins his public ministry in the Galilean region. In The Gospel According to Mark, Jesus begins his ministry with a summons. “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news” (1:15). Then he spots two men, Simon and Andrew, fishing and says “Come, follow me… and I’ll show you how to fish for people” (1:17).

This summons is our calling too. We’re called to repent and believe the good news of God’s coming kingdom and follow Jesus in living out this kingdom life. That’s what participation in the mission of God is and I can’t think of any Christian off hand that would disagree with me at this point. If you do, then you’re wrong but I digress. What I’m getting at is that instinctively I think we all understand that being Christians and being a local church is about Jesus and the kingdom of God. We may not understand everything that implies but we know this life we are called to live is about following Jesus in living the kingdom life.

Because we believe that living as a Christian is about following Jesus, it seems that this fundamental conviction should shape the way we read the Bible too. That is, if we’re called to follow Jesus then we ought to be reading the Bible in order to live as followers of Jesus. However, that’s not always been the case.

Growing up in the Churches of Christ, the Bible was read as an instruction manual for restoring the ecclesiological pattern of the first-century church in the New Testament. This hermeneutic resulted in a de facto creed producing sectarianism, legalism, and division by marking of a boundary of who was a true Christian based on this ecclesiological pattern. Such Christianity was about boundaries, who’s in and who’s not. If you kept this creed, you were considered a Christian and still live a life that reflected very little, if any, of the life that Jesus. Just uphold the right doctrines regarding baptism, the Lord’s supper, singing in worship, women in the church, church leadership, non-denominationalism, and the list goes on and on. But becoming more merciful like Jesus, living a self-sacrificial life like Jesus, and all the other characteristics of Jesus’ life was never a part of this system.

I could share stories upon stories to illustrate this point but I think most readers familiar with this tribe understand what I’m talking about. Also, this is not to say that there were not any Christians among the “CofC” tribe who were not striving to become more like Jesus. I could also share stories upon stories of such Christians striving to live like Jesus. My point is that discipleship was more about staying within the boundary than will following Jesus in such a manner that our life reflected more and more of the Jesus we read about in scripture. And that’s because we weren’t reading the Bible to follow Jesus, we were reading it to follow an assumed ecclesiological pattern.

The fact that Jesus summons to follow him after proclaiming the good news of God’s kingdom is significant. Without getting too technical at this point, it tells us that our eyes and ears are to be focused on Jesus as we learn how to embody the kingdom that Jesus is ushering in. So as for reading the Bible, we are given a new hermeneutical lens that is Christ-Centered and Kingdom-Oriented. We are now reading scripture to understand how it reveals the mission of God to us that is fulfilled by Jesus. Our eyes and ears are tuned to the way of Christ (Christ-Centered) so that our life together as a church is joined with God’s goal or aim in Christ or restoring his kingdom (Kingdom-Oriented) upon earth as it is in heaven.

This is how we participate in the mission of God who is bringing about redemption, reconciliation, and restoration to his creation, making all things new—new creation in Christ. We do this as people who are filled with the Holy Spirit not always trying to repeat what other Christians have done, either in the first-century, the sixteenth century, or even other “successful” churches today. Instead we do this by gathering as local churches who are engaged in worship and fellowship with each other as we are engaged in prayer and absorbed in the biblical narrative told throughout the Old and New Testament scriptures. At the same time, we must be engaged in our local community as listeners who observe and partner with the people of the community. Then we are poised to discern together how God is calling us to partner with him in his mission, which is what reading the Bible from a Christ-Centered and Kingdom-Oriented lens is all about.

Misreading Scripture

Christians believe the Bible is about the creative and redemptive work God is fulfilling in Jesus Christ. With all of the different stories and teaching told through different genres written in specific historical contexts, the Bible, stated in the most simplest of ways, is about Jesus. In fact, this is so fundamental that I can’t imagine any Christian who would disagree. Yet it’s still possible to read the Bible and miss Jesus, or at least miss what it really means to believe in and follow Jesus.

In the message I preached to the Newark Church of Christ this past Sunday, I mentioned three lenses that Christians sometimes read the Bible through. Each lens appears legit because there is enough scripture and Jesus in the lens that the problems are easily overlooked by the indiscriminate reader. The three lenses I have in mind are:

1. The Prosperity Lens. This lens, sometimes called The Health and Wealth Gospel, is based on the belief that God promises material wealth and physical well-being to those who seek him. Receiving this promise is a matter of faith. One major objection is that such a notion fails to account for how many faithful seekers of God, including Jesus and his apostles, all suffered on account of their faith. Right now, there are many Christians in countries like Iran and China who are suffering persecution for following Jesus. The fact is, that following Jesus just might result in suffering physically in some manner as well as enduring material poverty.
2. The Soterian Lens. This lens is what Scot McKnight refers to as the soterian gospel in which the gospel is equated with salvation (The King Jesus Gospel, p. 29). The gospel is reduced to a concern of just getting people saved and thus about sharing the Four Spiritual Laws. The problem with this lens is that it relegates discipleship as secondary, creating a false-dichotomy between believing in Jesus and following Jesus. Thus, a person can come to faith in Christ and thus “get saved” but not necessarily become a disciple. 
3. The Blueprint Lens. This lens, which is particular to my own history within the Churches of Christ and the larger Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement, reads the Bible, and particularly the New Testament, as a blueprint or constitution for the church. The problem is that the New Testament, a collection of twenty-seven different occasional writings, becomes a new law focused on restoring an assumed ecclesiological pattern. Faithfulness to Jesus is about keeping this pattern rather than following Jesus and embodying the gospel he proclaimed as the real pattern for how his followers should live. (As a side for those among the Churches of Christ, to learn more about this hermeneutic and a better theological hermeneutic as an alternative, I highly recommend the new book by John Mark Hicks, Searching For The Pattern, 2019.)

As I said earlier, we can proof-text enough scripture and sprinkle in enough Jesus to justify each lens. One problem with each lens is that they shift the aim or the end (telos) of scripture away from the gospel that Jesus and his apostles actually proclaimed. Though the shift often seems subtle, the significance is important because it may (and has) hinder our participation in the mission of God.

In a conversation Jesus was having with the Jewish leaders, who wanted to kill him, he observed how they read the scriptures but missed Jesus. John 5:39 says “Examine the scriptures, since you think that in them you have eternal life. They also testify about me.”  Yes, that was possible then and is still possible now. Christians may not wish to kill Jesus but they certainly have killed in the name of Jesus because their view of Jesus looks more like a John Rambo than the King who became a slaughtered lamb on a Roman cross. Missing Jesus is how some Christians of the past justified segregated churches while saying that Civil Rights was not the business of Christians. It’s how some Christians today downplay the continued problems of racism or pretend that racism is a “political issue” that has nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In some upcoming posts I will explain why the Bible is centered in Jesus Christ and oriented toward the kingdom of God. In more theological terms, the Old Testament and New Testament present a narrative that is Christiologically centered and eschatologically oriented. This narrative, read through the lens of Christology and Eschatology, provides the script for and hence opens space for discerning how our local churches might contextually embody the gospel on mission with God. But first, there may be some lenses that simply need to be discarded if we’re going to read the Bible in order to live as participants in the mission of God.