notes and quotes from Keller's Center Church.
Introduction:How am I to measure success?
Not in competence or in faithfulness but in fruitfulness which requires a combination of both.
Paul spoke of the pastoral nurture of congregations as a form of gardening. He told the Corinthian Christians they were 'God's field' in which some ministers planted, some watered, and some reaped. The gardening metaphor shows that both success and faithfulness by themselves are insufficient for evaluating ministry. Gardeners must be both faithful int heir work, but they must also be skilful, or the garden will fail. Yet in the end, the degree of the success of the garden (or the ministry) is determined by factors beyond the control of the gardener. The level of fruitfulness varies due to 'soil conditions' (that is some groups of people have a greater hardness of heart than others) and 'weather conditions' (that is, the work of God's sovereign Spirit as well).Speaking of Redeemer's success he says that simply copying their approach or model is not what's needed to be successful. They have classical music in the morning and jazz in the evening and their preaching references a lot of secular media sources. Are those the key ingredients? no:
Preaching is compelling to young secular adults not if preachers use video clips from their favourite movies and dress informally and sound sophisticated, but if the preachers understand their hearts and culture so well that listeners feel the force of the sermon's reasoning, even if in the end they don't agree with it. This is not a matter of style or program.The difference between churches style and method needs to be a reflection of particular theological vision. Our doctrine can be largely the same as another church but our theological vision will be different and thus our church style very different from another church of similar doctrinal belief's, style.
A theological vision is about how my doctrinal beliefs relate to the modern world. A theological vision is a vision for what you are going to do with your doctrine in a particular time and place. A theological vision develops out of deep biblical reflection but also it develops out of what you think of the culture around you. We must discern where and how the culture can be affirmed and challenged.
The answers to these questions have enormous impact on how we preach, evangelize, organize, lead, disciple and shepherd people.
The questions below will help in defining what our theological vision is:
- What is the gospel, and how do we bring it to bear on the hearts of people today?
- What is this culture like, and how can we both connect to it and challenge it in our communication?
- Where are we located - city, suburb, town, rural area - and how does this affect our ministry?
- To what degree and how should Christians be involved in civic life and cultural production?
- How do the various ministries in a church - word and deed, community and instruction - relate to one another?
- How innovative will our church be and how traditional?
- How will our church relate to other churches in our city and region?
- How will we make our case to the culture about the truth of Christianity?
A theological vision is a faithful restatement of the gospel with rich implications for life, ministry, and mission in a type of culture at a moment in history.
Richard Lints holds that what we believe about culture, reason and tradition will influence how we understand what Scripture says.
Culture - as we ask what modern culture is and which of its impulses are to be criticized and which are to be affirmed.
Reason - Some see human reason as being able to lead a nonbeliever a long way toward the truth, others deny this. Our view of the nature of human rationality will shape how we preach to, evangelises, argue with and engage with non-christians.
Tradition - is it all bad or all good or somewhere in between?
Theological Vision for Tim Keller includes three key areas:
Centre - Gospel
Centre - City
Centre - Movement
Chapter 1: The Gospel is not everything
1. The gospel is good news, not good advice.
The gospel is not primarily a way of life. It is not something we do, but something that has been done for us and something that we must respond to.
The gospel has four chapters:
1. Where did we come from? - from God: the one and the relational
2. Why did things go so wrong? - Because of sin: bondage and condemnation
3. What will put things right? - Christ: incarnation, substitution, restoration
4. How can I be put right? - Through faith: grace and trust
C.S. Lewis: if there is a God we certainly don't relate to him they way people on the first floor of a building relate to people on the second floor. We relate to him the way Hamlet relates to Shakespeare. We (characters) might be able to know quite a lot about the playwright but only to the degree that the author chooses to put information about himself in the play.
The gospel is news about something that’s happened, not advice about how to live.
Keller: there are two basic ways to answer the question ‘what is the gospel?’ One is to offer the biblical good news of how you can get right with God. This is to understand the question to mean, ‘What must I do to be saved?’ The second is to offer the biblical good news of what God will fully accomplish in history through the salvation of Jesus. This is to understand the question as ‘what hope is there for the world?’
The gospel as containing two key components:
- Personal salvation
- Cosmic salvation
As a message presented for and to an individual answering how they might be saved. We need to include: this is propositional
- Who God is
- What sin is
- Who Christ is & what he did
- What faith is
As a message about the world the answer can be given in terms of a story, the sweep of history from the Bible’s perspective, presented in chapters:
- Creation
- Fall
- Redemption
- Restoration
NB: on the above. The way the Bible uses ‘gospel’ is as is mentioned above, in terms of ‘good news’. It’s important to understand then that chapters 1, 2 & 4 aren’t strictly speaking ‘the gospel’. They are in that sense, prologue and epilogue to the great central story of redemption.
Simon Gathercole argues that both Paul and the Gospel writers considered the good news to have three basic elements:
- the identity of Jesus as Son of God & Messiah
- the death of Jesus for sin and justification
- the establishment of the reign of God and the new creation
Under that framework, the gospel squeezed into chapter 3 of the story is: incarnation, substitution & restoration
Tertullian: Just as Jesus was crucified in between two thieves so the gospel is often crucified between these two errors: religion and irreligion or legalism or antinomianism.
The gospel is the news about how we can be saved and about how the relational and social problems in the world will be and can be resolved. Horizontally the world is put right because of the vertical restoration found in Christ.
The gospel works by ‘tuning’ us to God.
Imagine an orchestra where all the instruments are out of tune. They need to first be retuned before they can play good music. In life we talk about being ‘tuned in’ and we describe the need to be ‘well-balanced’. The question could be asked ‘tuned to what?’ or ‘balanced according to whom?’ All of us need to be tuned to God and reconfigured to him before we can be described as in tune or ‘balanced’.
“The gospel does not begin by tuning us in relation to our particular problems and surroundings; it first re-tunes us to God.”
On the need to see the gospel as the main thing, the central thing and the inexhaustible, never to be graduated thing in the Christian life and church’s teaching:
When the preaching of the gospel is either confused with or separated from the other endeavours of the church, preaching becomes mere exhortation (to get with the church’s program or a biblical standard of ethics) or informational instruction (to inculcate the church’s values and beliefs). When the proper connection between the gospel and any aspect of ministry is severed, both are shortchanged.
The gospel is: news that creates a life of love, but the life of love is not itself the gospel.
Just because it is news does not mean that it is simple. There is no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ understanding of the gospel.
Chapter 2: The gospel is not a simple thing.
The gospel must be tied to the Bible's story line and themes. Two approaches to reading the Bible are:
- systematic
- redemptive historical (otherwise called biblical theology)
Systematic takes what the Bible says throughout its 66 books and puts them all together into categories. We believe that the Bible has one author and therefore we can ascertain his non-contradictory mind on various matters. In this approach the gospel appears as: God, sin, Christ, faith
Redemptive historical instead takes the Bible as a narrative and draws out what the Bible has to say about specific issues in each of the stand alone points in the story. In this approach the gospel appears as: creation, fall, promise and prefigurement, Israel, Christ's redemption, restoration
Systematic theology carries out in isolation from the redemptive historical approach can produce a Christianity that is rationalistic, legalistic and individualistic. Similarly the redemptive historical approach carries out in isolation from the systematic tends to produce a Christianity that loves narrative and community but shies away from sharp distinctions between grace and law and between truth and heresy.One approach that tries to draw both the themes and the storyline of the Bible is to read the Bible through intercanonical themes. It seems that these are themes found in the Bible through which the gospel can be explained from beginning to end. Based on the table Keller puts out to explain what these are it seems similar to Andrew Wilson's GodStories which he systematised into breaks in the story/themes in the story. The table's contents is as listed below:
Home&Exile:
At creation we were made for: A place of rest and shalom
Sin is and results in: Self-centredness and the destroying of shalom
Israel is: Exiled in Egypt and then Babylon
Jesus is: The rejected & resurrected Lord who breaks power of death
Restoration looks like: The garden-city of God
RELATED THEMES:
Rest and sabbath. Sin has left us restless. How can we enter God's rest?
Justice and shalom. The fabric of the world is broken. How can we restore shalom
Trinity and community. We were made for personal and interdependent community with God and his people because we reflect the triune God. How can we become part of this community?
Yhweh&Covenant:
At creation we were made for: A faithful covenant love relationship with God
Sin is and results in: Unfaithfulness, causing God's curse and wrath
Israel is: Called to faithfulness but is unfaithful
Jesus is: The suffering servant bt new covenant Lord, takes sin's curse
Restoration looks like: The marriage supper of the lamb
RELATED THEMES:
Righteousness and nakedness. We experience shame and guilt. How can our sins be covered?
Marriage and faithfulness. We long for true love and closure. How can we find it?
Presence and sanctuary. We are made to flourish in the presence of God. How can we stand in it?
Kingdom:
At creation we were made for: God's kingdom and kingliness
Sin is and results in: Idolatry, causing enslavement
Israel is: Looking for a true judge or king
Jesus is: The returning true king, who frees from world, flesh, Devil
Restoration looks like: True freedom under the reign of God
RELATED THEMES:
Image and likeness. Loving God supremely is the only way to truly love anything else and become your true self, to become truly free.
Idolatry and freedom. Serving God supremely is the only way to freedom.
Wisdom and the word. Submission to the word of God is the way to wisdom.
The gospel must be contextualised:
The gospel has supernatural versatility to address the particular hopes, fears, and idols of every culture and every person.Paul presented the gospel of wisdom to Greeks who saw it as foolishness and to he presented it to the Jews as power to save and yet they received it as weakness. The reason that the gospel needs to be contextualised and presented in different ways to suit different audiences is because of both the intercanonical themes of the gospel but also because of the richness and diversity of humanity.
The gospel is a singular message, but it is not a simple message.Chapter 3: The Gospel Affects Everything
DA Carson on the need to think through how the gospel affects life:
It does not take much to think through how the gospel must also transform the business practices and priorities of Christians in commerce, the priorities of young men steeped in indecisive but often relentless narcissism, the lonely anguish and often the guilty pleasures of single folk who pursue pleasure but who cannot find happiness, the tired despair of those living on the margins, and much more.The richness of the gospel. Simon Gathercole offers the following outline of the gospel:
1. The Son of God emptied himself and came into the world in Jesus Christ, becoming a servant.
2. He died on the cross a substitutionary sacrifice.
3. He rose from the grave as the first fruits of a whole renewed world.
Fleshed out the implications of these truths are endless.
1. This is a complete reversal of the world's way of thinking. The winning through 'losing' mentality of no. 1 in the gospel.
2. If I know in my heart God loves me freely and has accepted me then I can begin to obey out of inner joy and gratitude. Religion is outside in, but the gospel is inside out.
3. The now but not yet keeps us from utopian triumphalism on the one hand and from pessimism or withdrawal from society on the other.
Keller:
A church that truly understand the implications of the biblical gospel, letting the word of Christ dwell in it richly will look like an unusual hybrid of various church forms and stereotypes.Grasping and applying these three key aspects of the gospel will make us look different:
1. Because of the inside-out substitutionary atonement: like an evangelical-charismatic church: personal conversion, experiential grace renewal, evangelism and church planting.
2. Because of the upside-down, kingdom/incarnation aspect: like an Anabaptist 'peace' church; deep community, cell groups, spiritual disciplines, living with the poor.
3. Because of the forward-back restoration/kingdom aspect: Kuyperian Reformed(?) church; cultural engagement, civic involvement, training people in 'secular' vocations.
A Centre Church champions all three: Inside-out transformation, upside-down values and forward-back hope.
Avoiding the opposite errors of legalism and license:
The power of the gospel comes in two movements. It first says, 'I am more sinful and flawed than I ever dared believe,' but then quickly follows with, 'I am more accepted and loved than I ever dared hope.'Keller gives a long list life areas and shows how the gospel forges a middle ground between two errors:
- Discouragement and depression
- Love and relationships
- Sexuality
- Family
- Self-control
- Race & culture
- Witness: The moralist we must convert because 'we are right and they are wrong'. The relativist denies the legitimacy of evangelism altogether.
We are courteous and careful with people. We don't have to push or coerce them, for it is only God's grace that opens hearts, not our eloquence or persistence or even their openness. together, these traits create not only an excellent neighbour in a multicultural society but also a winsome evangelist.
- Human authority: Moralists tend to obey family/tribe/culture too heavily since they rely heavily on their self-image as upright persons.
It is not that Jesus usurped the throne of Caesar but than when we allow Caesar to overstep his bounds, he is usurping the throne of Christ and leading people into idolatry.
- Guilt & self-image
- Joy & humour: Moralism kills our humour by causing us to take ourselves, our appearance, our attitudes too seriously. Relativism kills humour by an inevitable cynicism about the state of the world.
It is a miracle we are Christians, and the gospel, which creates bold humility, should give us a far deeper sense of humour and joy. We don't have to take ourselves seriously, and we are full of hope for the world.
- Attitudes toward class
Part 2: Gospel Renewal
Chapter 4: The Need for Gospel Renewal
Personal and Corporate gospel renewal. Personal = when the doctrines of sin and grace become real to our hearts and we experience them. Corporate = when a whole body of believers experience personal gospel renewal.
Leaders must make sure that they are bringing the gospel to bear on people's lives and not just exhorting them morally. The gospel 'is not just a set of beliefs but a power that changes us profoundly and continually.'
Behaviour betrays deeply held beliefs: Christians believe in their heads 'Jesus accepts me; therefore I will live a good life,' but their hearts and actions are functioning practically on the principle 'I live a good life; therefore Jesus accepts me.'
The results are: Smug satisfaction if we are living up to the standards or insecurity, anxiety and self-hatred if we feel we are failing to live up to them.
Critiquing revivals
In the past a person's transformation into the image of Christ took place in community and was an entirely corporate affair. The family was involved as was the family's church. Beginning with infant baptism then perhaps catechisms (training in church creeds and instructions), then they were admitted to the table for communion, first communion, weddings etc. all the family were present at all events in the one, local parish church that was also the same place family members from the past had been members of. It connected individuals to the past and to communities and saw the Christian life as a gradual transformation into the image of Christ. One's faith was first inherited and then personally confirmed.
The Industrial Revolution changed a lot of the way people did life. People moved around a lot more, moving away from their family home and 'market capitalism' mean that individuals had the power to act more autonomously, giving them more services and goods to choose from.
The ministries of the Wesley's and of George Whitfield took the gospel to where the people now were. To their workplaces, in the coal mines and urged for personal conversion to Christ in a way that didn't incorporate families and communities.
The problem with this in the eyes of church leaders were:
- It makes church engagement an optional extra and makes it difficult for churches to discipline their members.
- Emotional experience is placed above doctrinal soundness and holiness of life.
- Christianity becomes a way of meeting felt needs instead of a means of re-forming a person into the image of Christ.
- The individual is privileged at the expense of the community.
- Every Christian becomes his or her own spiritual authority and there is no true accountability.
Many of these criticisms are still valid today:
Extreme revivalism is certainly too individualistic. Our truth-allergic, experience-addicted populace wants transformation but doesn't want the loss of freedom and control associated with submitting to authority within a committed community. Many 'converts' seem to make decisions for Christ but soon lose their enthusiasm because they are offered quick programs for follow-up and small group fellowship rather than a lifelong, embodied experience of community. Many churches do not even have a process for becoming a member. As a result, converts' lives are often not visibly different from those in the culture around themHowever, Keller adds, the rebuttals of those skeptical of 'revivalism' aren't ultimately true since they: ignore our time in history and they don't give the 'heart' its biblical due. Or positively, revivalism is right since it fits our times and focuses on the conversion of 'the heart'.
A Biblical theology of revival:
- Israel's regular bouts of revival and forgetting
- Peter's instruction to beware losing an awareness of our past cleansing form sin (2P1:9)
- In Revelation Jesus calls the Ephesian church to 'return to your first love'
- The regular filling and empowering of the Spirit
The church-centric model for life broke down as people became increasingly mobile and society slowly became more pluralistic.
Conversion of the 'heart':
The heart occupies a position almost unique in the work of grace. (J. I. Marais, theology prof at Stellenbosch in S.A)
- In the heart God's spirit dwells with might (Eph. 3:16)
- In the heart God's love is poured forth (Rom 5:5)
- The Spirit of his Son has been 'sent forth into the heart' (Gal. 4:6)
- The 'earnest of the Spirit' has been given 'in the heart' (2 Cor 1:22)
The heart. Means more than just our emotions. It is true that we feel our emotions in our hearts (Lev 19:17; Pss 4:7, 13:2) but we also think and reason in our hearts (prv 23:7; Mk 2:8) and even act from our hearts (Eccl 10:2). Our heart is the centre of our personality, the seat of our fundamental commitments, the control centre of the whole person. Our mind, will and emotions are rooted there:
Saving faith is never less than intellectual assent, but it is always more than that. It combines rational knowledge with the conviction and trust of the heart.In the OT prophets the critique of Jeremiah was that the people needed to be circumcised in heart as well as in their bodies. In Ezekial 11:19 salvation meant the removal of the stony heart and it involve the cleansing of the heart (Ps. 51:10) and the heart made steadfast (Ps. 112:7).
When Jesus called a religious leader to be 'born again' he was essentially making the same exhortation that Jeremiah had made in calling people to circumcise their hearts.
Chapter 5: The Essence of Gospel Renewal
Revival is necessary because religion ('I obey therefore I'm accepted') is so different from the gospel ('I am accepted by God through Christ; therefore I obey') but is such an effective counterfeit.
There are three ways to live:
1) literally uncircumcised (pagans and nonbelievers who do not submit to God's laws)
2) circumcised only in the flesh (submitted to God's law but resting and relying on it)
3) circumcised in heart (submitted to God's law in response to the saving grace of God)
If you seek to be right with God through your morality and religion, you are not seeking God for your salvation; you are using God as a means to achieve your own salvation.Richard Lovelace on the predisposition of the church and human heart toward religion:
Much that we have interpreted as a defect of sanctification in church people is really an outgrowth of their loss of bearing with respect to justification. Christians who are no longer sure that God loves and accepts them in Jesus apart from their present spiritual achievements, are subconsciously radically insecure persons... Their insecurity shows itself in pride, a fierce defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive assertion of their own righteousness and defensive criticism of others. They come naturally to hate other cultural styles and other races in order to bolster their own security and discharge their suppressed anger.
In communicating the gospel we must not only distinguish between obeying and disobeying God but also between obeying God as a means of self-salvation and obeying God out of gratitude for an accomplished salvation: Always place three ways to live before your listeners.
In the end, legalism and relativism (license) in churches are not just equally wrong; they are basically the same thing. They are just different strategies of self-salvation built on human effort.
And is this next quote a 'key' to building healthy church? Is this what will unlock salvation and release the floodgates for new birth? Let's hope so...:
Moralistic behaviour change bends a person into a different pattern... rather than melting a person into a new shape.
In the end, legalism and relativism (license) in churches are not just equally wrong; they are basically the same thing. They are just different strategies of self-salvation built on human effort.
And is this next quote a 'key' to building healthy church? Is this what will unlock salvation and release the floodgates for new birth? Let's hope so...:
The only way into a ministry that sees people's lives change, that brings joy and power and electricity without authoritarianism, is through preaching the gospel to deconstruct both legalism and relativism.How to change behaviour? Moralism stirs up pride or it encourages good behaviour out of a fear of being punished. But as Keller says, this approach only exacerbates the issue:
Stirring up self-centredness in order to get someone to do the right thing does not get at the fundamental self-regard and self-absorption that is the main problem of the human heart. Consequently it does nothing to address the main cause of the behaviour you are trying to change (such as lying).This may have some power in 'restraining' the heart, it does nothing to 'change' it.
Moralistic behaviour change bends a person into a different pattern... rather than melting a person into a new shape.
Many people after years of being crushed under moralistic behaviourism, abandon their faith altogether, complaining that they are exhausted and 'can't keep it up.' But the gospel of God's grace doesn't try to bend a heart into a new pattern; it melts it and re-forms it into a new shape.
The gospel is the motivation for change: as in 2 Cor. 8-9 in motivating the church to give, as in Eph 5 motivating husbands to love their wives, as in Titus 3 with saying no to ungodliness.
The grace of God, Paul tells Titus, teaches us to say 'no' to ungodliness:
I can't help but keep typing up quotes!
And here is an answer to a lot of my questions. I have often wondered about discipling people and the need for discipline and temporal 'restraints' on behaviour (like self-imposed legalisms and behaviour modifications) to help them overcome debilitating sins and behaviour patterns. Keller addresses this issue. He says that, in short, since it is always right to obey God we must do whatever it takes to be faithful in the moment even if that obedience comes from impure and less than grace-motivated behaviour. He says 'if I have an overwhelming urge to throw a rock at someone I should do all that I can to stop myself: it's wrong! I may go to prison. God won't be pleased... In the short run there is no reason a Christian can't use pure willpower if necessary to obey God. But, he says, obedience is not the same thing as change.' Our long term motivation is what will bring about long term change:
Luther's teaching from the start of the 10 Commandments is this: anything we look to more than we look to Christ for our sense of acceptability, joy, significance, hope and security is by definition our god - something we adore, serve, and rely on with our whole life and heart.
How to discern idolatry:
Our failures in sanctification come mainly from a lack of orientation to our justification.
Chapter 6: The work of Gospel Renewal
If prayer is a penultimate means to produce revival what are some of the things that stop it?
Things that cut the nerve of gospel renewal and revival:
5 Characteristics that define preaching for gospel renewal:
- there are two basic questions we read every time we looks at the Bible. Is it about me or is it about Jesus?
5. Preach to both Christians and non-Christians at once.
- evangelise as you edify and edify as you evangelise.
Gospel renewal. How you know it's happening: When a group of people who on the whole think they already know the gospel discover they do not really or fully know it, and by embracing the gospel they cross over into living faith.
We want people to have a deeper sense of their sin debt and an intense sense of wonder at Christ's payment of it.
Gospel renewal produces people who are humbled (and thus not judgemental or dismissive of those who disagree with them) and yet also loved (and thus less concerned about other's opinions of them).
The active presence of a substantial number of genuine Christians thus changes a community in all its dimensions - economic, social, political, intellectual, and more.
PART 3: Gospel Contextualisation
Chapter 7: Intentional Contextualisation
Definition of contextualisation:
Contextualisation is not simply 'giving people what they want to hear.' It is instead, giving people the Bible's answers (which they may not at all want to hear) to questions about life (that those people in that particular place/time are asking) in language and forms through appeals and arguments with force they can feel, even if they reject them.
A contextualised gospel is marked by clarity and attractiveness, and yet it still challenges sinners' self-sufficiency and calls them to repentance. It adapts and connects to the culture, yet at the same time challenges and confronts it.
Some cultures are pragmatic: prod members to acquire possessions and power.
Some cultures are individualistic: urge members to seek personal freedom above all.
Some cultures are 'honour and shame' cultures: emphasis on respect, reputation, duty and bringing honour to your family.
Some cultures are discursive: put highest value on art and philosophy and learning.
G. Linwood Barney speaks of culture as resembling an onion:
We must be careful however as the call to contextualise has often been used as a cover for religious syncretism (or plain liberalism).
How do we judge whether or not we've moved from legitimate contextualisation into fatal syncretism?
Carson says: While no truth which human beings may articulate can ever be articulated in a culture-transcending way... that does not mean that the truth thus articulated does not transcend culture.
Maintain the balance in this statement:
1) There is no single way to express the Christian faith that is universal for everyone in all culture.
2) There is nonetheless only one true gospel. The truths of the gospel are not the product of any culture, and they stand in judgment over all human cultures.
Forget the first and insist on one particular way and approach leads to a narrow culturally bound conservatism. Forget the second and you may fall into relativsim which will lead to a 'rudderless liberalism'.
As soon as you choose words you are contextualising and you become more accessible to some people and less so to others.
Keller shares about a working-class Christian who attended a church led by middle class, highly educated leaders whose sermon illustrations were of things in their 'world' but not his (cricket, rugby, boarding school...). Eventually the man left the church and went to a different one. Did the church fail? Possibly, but then it is also true that:
Field or garden?
Jesus' illustration in Mark's gospel about the mustard seed being planted in a field is different in Matthew and Luke. For Matthew, the word is 'agros' (field) while in Luke it's changed to 'kepos' (garden) to take into account their different audiences. There is a technical contradiction but not a material one.
Contextualisation involves:
Chapter 8: Balanced Contextualisation
John Stott: Between Two Worlds likens preaching to building a bridge from the Scriptures to the contemporary world. To do this well we must go back and forth between two different horizons, between the two banks of the river in Stott's analogy.
Just as our reading of scripture can always be wrong and we must always be open to correction and learning, so to with our reading of the cultural contexts we find ourselves in. Remain open to more insight and correction.
The error of the illustration is that it assumes we are unaffected by culture and being neutral are therefore able to communicate authoritatively to another culture. Instead, since we are also the result of a non-biblical culture, we must allow 'two way traffic' on the bridge. We must ask questions and listen as well as speak.
We must beware also of a 'canon within a canon' a set of beliefs we value more than others simply because they are consistent with our culture's preferences. Attitudes to authority or God's love for all vs his judgement of the wicked for example are all to be found in the Bible but different cultures prize them/ignore them, differently. Interactions with different cultures help us lose our blinders and slowly but surely move to a more rounded biblical Christianity.
'Reductionism' is when we tame Scripture by not allowing it all to speak to us. We play down and thus distort the parts we don't 'like'.
Heavy traffic back and forth across the bridge is needed between cultures. We speak and listen, speak and listen, speak and listen.
Resource: Download Harvey Conn's 'contextual theology' course at Westminster.
Location 2701 has a list of books on the subject.
Chapter 9: Biblical Contextualisation
While many aspects of culture can be affirmed we must avoid uncritically accepting them.
This chapter is going to be about: the basis, motive and formula for good contextualisation.
Interesting! Common grace. By giving people, regardless of what they believe about God, a measure of wisdom, courage, insight and goodness, the Spirit works to check the power and influence of sin in the world and keeps it from being as bad a place to live as it could be.
Every culture assumes a set of answers to the big questions: Why are we here? What are therefore the most important things in life? What is wrong with the world? What will put things right? And every culture considers something of supreme worth; accordingly they seek to bring their environment into service to it.
Romans 1 makes it clear that general revelation exists in every heart and in every culture regardless of what it does with that knowledge. General revelation is defined as - a nonsaving knowledge and likeness of God that he grants to all those who bear his image.
Isaiah 28:23-29 talks about people being good at farming and says that 'God has instructed them'. Common grace.
General revelation as distinct from 'special revelation' which includes a knowledge of Jesus and our need for forgiveness.
Brilliant: One commentator says of this 'what appears as a discovery (seasons and conditions and farm management etc.) is actually the Creator opening his book of creation and revealing his truth.'
Every human culture is an extremely complex mixture of brilliant truth, marred half-truths, and overt resistance to the truth.
This is an important idea to grasp when considering the church in the world. The reason for that is:
As a result of seeing Romans 1 & 2 the idea of general revelation and common grace and the notion of suppressed revelation, we can see that there is a basis for doing contextualisation. But how are we to do it?
Effective contextualisation is choosing in love not to privilege yourself or to exercise your full freedom as a Christian so people can hear and follow Christ's call.
We don't want to remove the scandal of the cross however, it's just that we choose the right scandal to create:
In 1 Cor. 1 in Paul's 'Greek's demand wisdom and Jews signs' statement he points out how the cross offends and is applied to each cultural supreme value differently. Paul is neither completely confrontational nor is he totally affirming. He leads people through their cultural idols to see Christ as the answer to their questions and longings.
In Acts we see Paul putting these concepts into practise. We see him adapting his message deepening on his audience:
Acts 13:13-43 -- Bible believers
Acts 14:6 -- Peasant polytheists
Acts 17:16-34 -- Sophisticated pagans
Acts 20:16-38 -- Christian elders
Acts 21:27-22:22 -- Hostile Jewish mob
Acts 24-26 -- Governing elites
How do the speeches differ?
Sometimes the appeal in scripture is to come to God out of...
Demolition. Contextualising with balance and effectiveness we must both enter the culture sympathetically and respectfully and confront the culture where it contradicts biblical truth. like drilling a hole in rock and blasting it from the inside, we must do both drilling and blasting.
Doing our 'blasting' on the basis of our drilling (when we challenge the culture's errors on the basis of something it rightly believes) then the gospel will have an impact on people.
We want to avoid both cultural captivity (the refusal to adapt to new times and new cultures) and syncretism (bringing unbiblical views and practices into our Christianity). Both have different dangers: For the first we risk becoming incomprehensible and irrelevant and for the second we risk losing our Christian identity and distinctiveness.
Active contextualisation involves three steps:
1) Entering the culture
2) Challenging the culture
3) Appealing to the listeners
Entering the culture:
This begins with a diligent (and never-ending) effort to become as fluent in their social, linguistic, and cultural reality as possible.
There is IQ, EQ (emotional intelligence quotient), but ministry leaders should also be characterised by CQ (cultural quotient). This includes examining our own culture:
Some questions to explore:
What institutions, schools, theologies, worldviews, regional cultures, artistic expressions, ministries churches and leaders have shaped me?
What forms of ministry have shaped me?
What can I adapt, and what must I discard?
Where do I need to detox and rehabilitate from those influences?
It also includes having our hearts shaped by the gospel
Third, immerse yourself in culture.
Fourth: Immersion in the pastoral needs of people in our community and continued involvement in evangelistic venues could not be more important. If we are deeply involved in the lives, questions and concerns of the people, then when we study the Bible in order to preach it to them, we will see God's answers to their questions.
David Hesselgrave speaks of three basic ways to reason:
Most ancient cities numbered 1000-3000 in population, all packed within the city wall. Therefore for the Bible the essence of a city is not population size but density. A city is a social form in which people physically live in close proximity to one another.
Most ancient cities were between 5-10 acres (1 acre = approx. one football pitch), containing an average of 240 residents per acre. By comparison Manhattan houses only 105 residents per acre
Three features of ancient city life:
City Fact: There is a near-perfect correlation between urbanisation and prosperity across nations. When the urban population rises by 10% the country's per capita output increases by 30%. Incomes are almost four times higher in countries where a majority live in cities.
In all other ancient cultures the development of human technology is always mythologised and advancements attributed to the gods. This isn't the case in the Bible where instead man partners with God.
The prophets and the city:
Alec Motyer notes that 'the Isaianic literature could be accurately described as 'the book of the city.' He says that in Isaiah, Jerusalem, Zion, mount/mountain, and city are used interchangeably showing the city's centrality in the divine thought and plan.
The great battle lines of history are drawn with this realisation:
The grace of God, Paul tells Titus, teaches us to say 'no' to ungodliness:
The word we translate teach is a Greek word that means to train, discipline and coach someone over a period of time... You must let the gospel sink down deeply until it changes your views and the structures of your motivation. You must be trained and discipled by the gospel.I like his words 'over time' and in the next section 'slowly but surely' - this seems to match my experience too!
I can't help but keep typing up quotes!
And when the gospel brought home to our hearts, eats away at this sin-born neediness, it destroys the inner engines that drive sinful behaviour. We don't have to lie, because our reputation isn't so important to us. We don't have to respond in violent anger against opponents, because no one can touch our true treasure. The gospel destroys both pride and the fearfulness that fuel moralistic behaviour change.Obeying and changing: bird and fox
And here is an answer to a lot of my questions. I have often wondered about discipling people and the need for discipline and temporal 'restraints' on behaviour (like self-imposed legalisms and behaviour modifications) to help them overcome debilitating sins and behaviour patterns. Keller addresses this issue. He says that, in short, since it is always right to obey God we must do whatever it takes to be faithful in the moment even if that obedience comes from impure and less than grace-motivated behaviour. He says 'if I have an overwhelming urge to throw a rock at someone I should do all that I can to stop myself: it's wrong! I may go to prison. God won't be pleased... In the short run there is no reason a Christian can't use pure willpower if necessary to obey God. But, he says, obedience is not the same thing as change.' Our long term motivation is what will bring about long term change:
Imagine that a baby bird falls from its nest in the sight line of a fox. The bird cannot yet fly (hence the fall), but there is a small protective hole at the base of a tree that is within a scurry's reach. The fox pounces and sets out after the bird. What should the little bird do? Of course, it should scamper into the hole to get out of immediate danger. But is as time goes on all the bird ever does is scamper, it will never learn what it has been designed for: to fly. And eventually it will surely be eaten by the predators it is designed to escape.
In the short run, we should simply obey God because it is his right and due. But in the long run, the ultimate way to shape our lives and escape the deadly influence of our besetting sins is by moving the heart with the gospel.And it's place in church life. A clear job description right here:
The purpose of preaching, pastoring, counselling, instructing and discipling is, therefore, to show people these practical implications of faith in the gospel.Idolatry and the gospel
Luther's teaching from the start of the 10 Commandments is this: anything we look to more than we look to Christ for our sense of acceptability, joy, significance, hope and security is by definition our god - something we adore, serve, and rely on with our whole life and heart.
How to discern idolatry:
A sure sign of the presence of idolatry is inordinate anxiety, anger, or discouragement when our idols are thwarted. So if we lose a good thing, it makes us sad, but if we lose an idol, it devastates us.Our failures in actual righteousness generally come from a failure to rejoice in our legal righteousness.
Our failures in sanctification come mainly from a lack of orientation to our justification.
Chapter 6: The work of Gospel Renewal
If prayer is a penultimate means to produce revival what are some of the things that stop it?
Things that cut the nerve of gospel renewal and revival:
- a church losing its grip on the orthodox tenets of theology that under-gird the gospel (trinity, deity of Christ, wrath of God).
- spiritual inertia: holding orthodox doctrines but with imbalance and with a lack of proper emphasis.
- giving too much energy to defending the faith rather than propogating it
- giving too much energy to matters such as prophecy or spiritual gifts or creation and evolution, becoming enamoured with the mechanics of ministry or church organisation.
- critical doctrines such as grace and justification and conversion are 'kept on the shelf'.
1) PreachingThe gospel must cut away both the moralism and the licentiousness that destroys real spiritual life and power.
2) Training leaders and getting them to repent of idols
3) Small Groups with experiential elements
4) Conversations (1:1s)
5) Ensure that elders and pastors know how to use the gospel in counselling
5 Characteristics that define preaching for gospel renewal:
- Preach to distinguish between religion and the gospel.
- Preach both the holiness and the love of God to convey the richness of grace.
- Jesus was so holy he had to die for us and he was so loving he was glad to.
- Preach not only to make the truth clear but also to make it real.
- Preaching must not simply tell people what to do. It must re-present Christ in such a way that he captures the heart and imagination more than material things.
Lloyd Jones on preaching:4. Preach Christ from every text.
As preachers we must not forget this. We are not merely imparters of information. We should tell our people to read certain books themselves and get the information there. The business of preaching is to make such knowledge live.
- there are two basic questions we read every time we looks at the Bible. Is it about me or is it about Jesus?
5. Preach to both Christians and non-Christians at once.
- evangelise as you edify and edify as you evangelise.
Gospel renewal. How you know it's happening: When a group of people who on the whole think they already know the gospel discover they do not really or fully know it, and by embracing the gospel they cross over into living faith.
We want people to have a deeper sense of their sin debt and an intense sense of wonder at Christ's payment of it.
Gospel renewal produces people who are humbled (and thus not judgemental or dismissive of those who disagree with them) and yet also loved (and thus less concerned about other's opinions of them).
The active presence of a substantial number of genuine Christians thus changes a community in all its dimensions - economic, social, political, intellectual, and more.
PART 3: Gospel Contextualisation
Chapter 7: Intentional Contextualisation
Definition of contextualisation:
Contextualisation is not simply 'giving people what they want to hear.' It is instead, giving people the Bible's answers (which they may not at all want to hear) to questions about life (that those people in that particular place/time are asking) in language and forms through appeals and arguments with force they can feel, even if they reject them.
A contextualised gospel is marked by clarity and attractiveness, and yet it still challenges sinners' self-sufficiency and calls them to repentance. It adapts and connects to the culture, yet at the same time challenges and confronts it.
When we contextualise faithfully and skilfully, we show people how the baseline 'cultural narratives' of their society and the hopes of their hearts can only find resolution and fulfilment in Jesus.Cultural narratives
Some cultures are pragmatic: prod members to acquire possessions and power.
Some cultures are individualistic: urge members to seek personal freedom above all.
Some cultures are 'honour and shame' cultures: emphasis on respect, reputation, duty and bringing honour to your family.
Some cultures are discursive: put highest value on art and philosophy and learning.
G. Linwood Barney speaks of culture as resembling an onion:
Inner core: our worldview (the world, cosmology and human nature)
Second layer: Values (the good, true and beautiful)
Final layer: Observable culture (customs, behaviour, products, buildings)The 'traffic' isn't linear or one way in culture making but contextualising the gospel need take all of the these 'layers' into account.
We must be careful however as the call to contextualise has often been used as a cover for religious syncretism (or plain liberalism).
How do we judge whether or not we've moved from legitimate contextualisation into fatal syncretism?
Carson says: While no truth which human beings may articulate can ever be articulated in a culture-transcending way... that does not mean that the truth thus articulated does not transcend culture.
Maintain the balance in this statement:
1) There is no single way to express the Christian faith that is universal for everyone in all culture.
2) There is nonetheless only one true gospel. The truths of the gospel are not the product of any culture, and they stand in judgment over all human cultures.
Forget the first and insist on one particular way and approach leads to a narrow culturally bound conservatism. Forget the second and you may fall into relativsim which will lead to a 'rudderless liberalism'.
As soon as you choose words you are contextualising and you become more accessible to some people and less so to others.
Keller shares about a working-class Christian who attended a church led by middle class, highly educated leaders whose sermon illustrations were of things in their 'world' but not his (cricket, rugby, boarding school...). Eventually the man left the church and went to a different one. Did the church fail? Possibly, but then it is also true that:
There is a limit to flexibility. The preachers must choose some particular illustrations and concepts that will inevitably be more meaningful to some cultural groups than others... [stretch ourselves yes, but also] we should not live in the illusion that we can share the gospel so as to make it all things to all people at once.As well as illustration type, another point of cultural contextualised connectedness is the emotional expressiveness and whether it is 'calibrated' to the person listening. He quotes an Hispanic member of his church who felt the need to reassure his friends 'he really does believe what he's saying with all his heart,' despite Keller's lack of emotion while preaching. To other cultures highly charged emotional expression appears 'ranty' and less convincing.
Field or garden?
Jesus' illustration in Mark's gospel about the mustard seed being planted in a field is different in Matthew and Luke. For Matthew, the word is 'agros' (field) while in Luke it's changed to 'kepos' (garden) to take into account their different audiences. There is a technical contradiction but not a material one.
Contextualisation involves:
- Language and vocabulary
- Emotional expressiveness
- Illustrations
- The way we reason (logic or intuition)
The challenge of contextualisation for culturally dominant groups. A useful comment on cultural blindness:
Believers who live in individualistic cultures such as the US are blind to the importance of being in deep community and placing themselves under spiritual accountability and discipline. This is why many church hoppers attend a variety of churches and don't join or fully enter any of them. American Christians see church membership as optional. They take a nonbiblical feature of American culture and bring it into their Christian life. On the other hand, Christians in more authoritarian and patriarchal cultures often are blind to what the Bible says about freedom of conscience and the grace-related aspects of Christianity. Instead, their leaders stress duty and are heavy-handed rather than eager to follow Jesus' words that 'if anyone want to be first, he must be the very last and the servant of all.'
Chapter 8: Balanced Contextualisation
John Stott: Between Two Worlds likens preaching to building a bridge from the Scriptures to the contemporary world. To do this well we must go back and forth between two different horizons, between the two banks of the river in Stott's analogy.
Just as our reading of scripture can always be wrong and we must always be open to correction and learning, so to with our reading of the cultural contexts we find ourselves in. Remain open to more insight and correction.
The error of the illustration is that it assumes we are unaffected by culture and being neutral are therefore able to communicate authoritatively to another culture. Instead, since we are also the result of a non-biblical culture, we must allow 'two way traffic' on the bridge. We must ask questions and listen as well as speak.
We must beware also of a 'canon within a canon' a set of beliefs we value more than others simply because they are consistent with our culture's preferences. Attitudes to authority or God's love for all vs his judgement of the wicked for example are all to be found in the Bible but different cultures prize them/ignore them, differently. Interactions with different cultures help us lose our blinders and slowly but surely move to a more rounded biblical Christianity.
'Reductionism' is when we tame Scripture by not allowing it all to speak to us. We play down and thus distort the parts we don't 'like'.
Heavy traffic back and forth across the bridge is needed between cultures. We speak and listen, speak and listen, speak and listen.
Resource: Download Harvey Conn's 'contextual theology' course at Westminster.
Location 2701 has a list of books on the subject.
Chapter 9: Biblical Contextualisation
While many aspects of culture can be affirmed we must avoid uncritically accepting them.
This chapter is going to be about: the basis, motive and formula for good contextualisation.
Interesting! Common grace. By giving people, regardless of what they believe about God, a measure of wisdom, courage, insight and goodness, the Spirit works to check the power and influence of sin in the world and keeps it from being as bad a place to live as it could be.
Every culture assumes a set of answers to the big questions: Why are we here? What are therefore the most important things in life? What is wrong with the world? What will put things right? And every culture considers something of supreme worth; accordingly they seek to bring their environment into service to it.
Romans 1 makes it clear that general revelation exists in every heart and in every culture regardless of what it does with that knowledge. General revelation is defined as - a nonsaving knowledge and likeness of God that he grants to all those who bear his image.
Isaiah 28:23-29 talks about people being good at farming and says that 'God has instructed them'. Common grace.
General revelation as distinct from 'special revelation' which includes a knowledge of Jesus and our need for forgiveness.
Brilliant: One commentator says of this 'what appears as a discovery (seasons and conditions and farm management etc.) is actually the Creator opening his book of creation and revealing his truth.'
Every human culture is an extremely complex mixture of brilliant truth, marred half-truths, and overt resistance to the truth.
This is an important idea to grasp when considering the church in the world. The reason for that is:
Without this understanding of culture, Christians will tend to think that they can live self-sufficiently, isolated from and unblessed by the contributions of those in the world. Without an appreciation for God's gracious display of his wisdom in the broader culture, Christians may struggle to understand why non-Christians often exceed Christians in moral practice, wisdom and skill.And then check this quote out!
The doctrine of sin means that as believers we are never as good as our right worldview should make us. At the same time, doctrine of our creation in the image of God, and an understanding of common grace, remind us that nonbelievers are never as flawed as their false worldview should make them.Definitions of culture: (box insert loc. 2881)
As a result of seeing Romans 1 & 2 the idea of general revelation and common grace and the notion of suppressed revelation, we can see that there is a basis for doing contextualisation. But how are we to do it?
Effective contextualisation is choosing in love not to privilege yourself or to exercise your full freedom as a Christian so people can hear and follow Christ's call.
We don't want to remove the scandal of the cross however, it's just that we choose the right scandal to create:
Proper contextualisation means causing the right scandal.The formula for contextualisation:
In 1 Cor. 1 in Paul's 'Greek's demand wisdom and Jews signs' statement he points out how the cross offends and is applied to each cultural supreme value differently. Paul is neither completely confrontational nor is he totally affirming. He leads people through their cultural idols to see Christ as the answer to their questions and longings.
In Acts we see Paul putting these concepts into practise. We see him adapting his message deepening on his audience:
Acts 13:13-43 -- Bible believers
Acts 14:6 -- Peasant polytheists
Acts 17:16-34 -- Sophisticated pagans
Acts 20:16-38 -- Christian elders
Acts 21:27-22:22 -- Hostile Jewish mob
Acts 24-26 -- Governing elites
How do the speeches differ?
- Paul cites a variety of different authorities : scripture, general revelation, creation, pagan poets.
- Biblical content changes depending on audience
- How he speaks of sin varies too : to Bible believers he says 'you think you're good but you aren't good enough.' with pagans he talks about 'worthless things' (idols) and points them to turn to the living God the true source of 'joy'.
- Emotion and reasoning vary
- Introductions and conclusions vary
- His figures of speech and illustrations vary
- His identification of the audience's concerns, hopes and dreams vary
How are they similar?
Although there is no set presentation of the gospel, there is only one gospel. It is described as:
- The good news about the Lord Jesus, the good news, the message of salvation, the message of his grace, the message of God' grace, the gospel, the word of his grace
In every message there is:
- An epistemological challenge: people are being told that their understanding of God and ultimate reality is wrong.
- A personal challenge: regarding sin.
- Truth about Jesus: he is the messianic king who can save you.
- A call to respond to Jesus by repenting and believing in him.
Consider Jesus' different ways of evangelising someone:
- The rich young ruler (law and repentance)
- The woman at the well (his ability to satisfy)
- Nicodemus (God's sovereignty and need for humility)
Keller:
We all tend to be blind to how much our own culture and temperament shape how we do gospel ministry, but careful attention to the remarkable diversity of gospel ministry in the Bible can broaden us.
People of a conservative temperament may want to stress judgement even more than the Bible itself does, while people of a liberal temperament may want to stress unconditional love more than the Bible does. Those of a rational bent need to see the importance of narrative while those who love stories need to appreciate the extremely closely reasoned arguments of, say, Paul's letters.6 motivations to use when appealing to non-Christians to believe the gospel:
Sometimes the appeal in scripture is to come to God out of...
- ...fear of judgement and death: Heb. 2:14-18, H10:31
- ...a desire for release from the burdens of guilt and shame: Gal. 3:10-12
- ...appreciation for the 'attractiveness of truth' 1 Cor. 1:18
- ...a desire to satisfy unfulfilled existential longings (John 4, living water is more than just 'eternal life after death')
- ...a need for help with a problem (Mt. 9:20-21 whether sickness or rescue form judgement)
- ...out of a desire to be loved
Carson concludes the list by saying:
We do not have a right to choose only one of these motivation in people and to appeal to it restrictively.
Keller adds:
This address one of the greatest dangers for us as preachers and evangelists. Most of us come to Christ through one of these motivations, or we are part of a community of people who find one of these motivations to be persuasive. It is natural for us to exclusively use this motivation in our appeals to others.
Francis Schaeffer says about not adding rules and regs on things that scripture doesn't and how the church ought to handle itself:
Anything the New Testament does not command in regard to church form is a freedom to be under the leadership of the Holy Spirit for that particular time and place.Chapter 10: Active contextualisation
Demolition. Contextualising with balance and effectiveness we must both enter the culture sympathetically and respectfully and confront the culture where it contradicts biblical truth. like drilling a hole in rock and blasting it from the inside, we must do both drilling and blasting.
Doing our 'blasting' on the basis of our drilling (when we challenge the culture's errors on the basis of something it rightly believes) then the gospel will have an impact on people.
We want to avoid both cultural captivity (the refusal to adapt to new times and new cultures) and syncretism (bringing unbiblical views and practices into our Christianity). Both have different dangers: For the first we risk becoming incomprehensible and irrelevant and for the second we risk losing our Christian identity and distinctiveness.
Active contextualisation involves three steps:
1) Entering the culture
2) Challenging the culture
3) Appealing to the listeners
Entering the culture:
This begins with a diligent (and never-ending) effort to become as fluent in their social, linguistic, and cultural reality as possible.
It involves learning to express people's hopes, objection, fears and beliefs so well that they feel as though they could not express them better themselves.Schaeffer:
Christianity demands that we have enough compassion to learn the questions of our generation... answering questions is hard work... begin to listen with compassion.Learning a culture:
There is IQ, EQ (emotional intelligence quotient), but ministry leaders should also be characterised by CQ (cultural quotient). This includes examining our own culture:
Some questions to explore:
What institutions, schools, theologies, worldviews, regional cultures, artistic expressions, ministries churches and leaders have shaped me?
What forms of ministry have shaped me?
What can I adapt, and what must I discard?
Where do I need to detox and rehabilitate from those influences?
It also includes having our hearts shaped by the gospel
Third, immerse yourself in culture.
Fourth: Immersion in the pastoral needs of people in our community and continued involvement in evangelistic venues could not be more important. If we are deeply involved in the lives, questions and concerns of the people, then when we study the Bible in order to preach it to them, we will see God's answers to their questions.
David Hesselgrave speaks of three basic ways to reason:
- Conceptual (western). Analysis and logic.
- Concrete relational (Chinese). Convictions arrived at through relationships and practice.
- Intuitional (Indian). Insight and experience based reasoning. Stories matter most not proving through propositions/reasoning.
To enter a culture, another main task is to discern its dominant worldviews or belief systems, because contextualised gospel ministry should affirm the beliefs of the culture wherever it can be done with integrity.
'A' beliefs & 'B' beliefs:
A = beliefs in the culture that correspond with Biblical truth.
B = beliefs in the culture that are out of sync with biblical truth.
e.g. in NY what the Bible says about turning the other cheek is applauded. What it says about sexuality is rejected. In the Middle East it is the other way around.
Challenging and confronting the culture
Float B doctrines (stones) on top of A doctrines (wood) to get both across the river and effectively challenge the culture you're in.
Our premise for discussion needs to be drawn from the Bible but we will always find somethings in a culture's beliefs that are roughly true, things on which we can build our critique.
E.g. 'you see this A belief you have? The Bible says the same thing - so we agree. However if 'A' is true then it is not right, fair or consistent for you to reject 'B'. If you believe this, then how can you believe that?
C.S. Lewis's attempt at helping his British readers accept the idea of a jealous, holy God:
If God is Love, he is, by definition something more than mere kindness... He has paid us the intolerable compliment of loving us, in the deepest, most tragic, most inexorable sense...
When we fall in love with a woman, do we cease to care whether she is clean or dirty, fair or foul? Do we not rather, then, first begin to care?
In awful and surprising ways, we are objects of his love. You asked for a loving God you have one... not a senile benevolence that drowsily wishes you to be happy in your own way, not the cold philanthropy of a conscientious magistrate... but the consuming fire himself, the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artists's love for his work... providence and venerable as a father's love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between the sexes. How this should be, I do not know: it passes reason to explain why any creatures, not to say creatures such as we, should have a value so prodigious in their Creator's eyes. It is certainly a burden of glory no only beyond our deserts but also, except in rare moment of race, beyond our desiring.
People have a 'cultural allergy' to sin.
It used be of most importance in our society for a person to be 'good'. Now things have shifted that it is is of most importance that a person be 'free'. Exposing how idols enslave is one way of teaching how sin short circuits life's overall aim.
Alexis de Tocqueville on the American belief that prosperity could bring deep down happiness:
'The incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy the human heart.' He spoke of a 'strange melancholy often haunting inhabitants of democracies in the midst of abundance.'David Foster Wallace: on atheism and worship
In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.Pressure points in our secular west:
- The commodification of sex. Thinkers have long discerned the difference between a consumer relationship (characteristic of the marketplace) and a covenant relationship (historically personal relationships especially within the family). Traditionally 'you didn't give your body to someone unless you committed your whole life to them (and they to you)'. The bible teaches that sex should be used as a means of 'self-donation' not 'self-gratification'. Put like this it appeals to the culture's 'A' belief in the goodness of community.
- The problem of human rights. In the west we have a strong sense of the value of personal value and rights. However, as many atheistic philosophers also point out, this is incompatible with a secular rationale.
- The loss of cultural hope. Whereas once our cultures hope may have been that we all lived and built and fought and died 'for the glory of God', now 'hope is narrowd to the vanishing point of the self alone.'Andrew Delbanco in his book argues that we are now in a cultural crisis. 'To say that the meaning of life is mere self-fulfilment cannot give a society the resources necessary to create a cohesive, healthy culture. A narrative must give people a reason for sacrifice - for living and dying - and the self-fulfilment narrative cannot do it.'
Appealing to and consoling the listeners:
Blaise Pascal:
Men despise religion; they hate it and fear it is true. To remedy this, we must begin by showing that religion is not contrary to reason; that it is venerable, to inspire respect for it; then we must make it lovable, to make good men hope it is true; finally, we must prove it is true.Models of atonement as 'grammars' or 'languages'
- The language of the battlefield. Christus victor.
- The language of the marketplace. Ransom from slavery.
- The language of exile. Scape goat and homecoming.
- The language of the temple. Sacrifice and purification.
- The language of the law court. Christ stands before the judge and takes our punishment.
Roger Nicole argues that the one irreducible theme that runs throughout all the models is: Substitution. Jesus does what we can't, steps in our place.
It's in our blood:
Ajith Fernando, a Sri Lankan evangelist, communicates the idea of substitutionary atonement to his listeners with this illustration:
Have you ever had an infected wound or sore? When you open it, what comes rolling out? Pus. And what is that? It is basically the collective corpses of white blood cells fighting the infection that have died so that you may live. Do you see? Substitutionary salvation is in your very blood.
Keller ends the chapter with this:
The gospel is the deepest consolation you can offer to the human heart. Once you have taken care to enter and have found the courage to challenge the world for your hearers, be sure to offer this consolation with the passion of one who has experienced it firsthand.
Part 4: City Vision
Chapter 11: The tension of the city
The city is humanity intensified. It brings out the very best and worst of human nature.
The Bible depicts cities as places of perversion and violence and also as places of refuge and peace.
The most common Hebrew word for city, meant any human settlement surrounded by some fortification or wall.
Chapter 11: The tension of the city
The city is humanity intensified. It brings out the very best and worst of human nature.
The Bible depicts cities as places of perversion and violence and also as places of refuge and peace.
The most common Hebrew word for city, meant any human settlement surrounded by some fortification or wall.
Most ancient cities numbered 1000-3000 in population, all packed within the city wall. Therefore for the Bible the essence of a city is not population size but density. A city is a social form in which people physically live in close proximity to one another.
Most ancient cities were between 5-10 acres (1 acre = approx. one football pitch), containing an average of 240 residents per acre. By comparison Manhattan houses only 105 residents per acre
Three features of ancient city life:
- Safety and stability. Walls meant greater safety. This safety made life more stable and made possible the growth of human civilisation. Civilised literally means 'citifed'.
- Diversity.
- Productivity and creativity. The more people of the same profession come together, the more they stimulate new ideas and the faster these new ideas spread.
- An economic order where people work and business takes places
- A cultural order where people learn and create and enjoy art
- A political-legal order, where cases are decided and governing officials meet.
City Fact: People who live in cities larger than 1million are 50% more productive than those who live in smaller areas. This is the same even when we take into account the education, experience and industry of workers. Even if the workers IQs are taken into account.
City Fact: There is a near-perfect correlation between urbanisation and prosperity across nations. When the urban population rises by 10% the country's per capita output increases by 30%. Incomes are almost four times higher in countries where a majority live in cities.
In all other ancient cultures the development of human technology is always mythologised and advancements attributed to the gods. This isn't the case in the Bible where instead man partners with God.
"Lot's decision to live in a city without a believing community led to spiritual disaster for his family."Abraham stays away from cities and remains a shepherd and nomad his whole life. The book of Hebrews explains the reason for this:
"By faith Abraham lived in tents for he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God."The urban society in God's plan is based on service, not on selfishness.
The prophets and the city:
Alec Motyer notes that 'the Isaianic literature could be accurately described as 'the book of the city.' He says that in Isaiah, Jerusalem, Zion, mount/mountain, and city are used interchangeably showing the city's centrality in the divine thought and plan.
The great battle lines of history are drawn with this realisation:
The great spiritual conflict of history is not between city dwellers and country dwellers but is truly 'a tale of two cities.' It is a struggle between Babylon, representing the city of man, and Jerusalem, representing the city of God. The earthly city is a metaphor for human life structured without God, created for self-salvation, self-service, and self-glorification.
Exile
From Genesis to Revelation Babylon is pictured as the epitome of a civilisation built on selfishness, pride and violence and yet when in captivity God tells his people to "seek the peace and prosperity of the city." They weren't to form a ghetto but instead they were told to use their resources for the common good. This is quite a balance!
Chapter 12: Redemption and the city
Having an exilic model helps us understand the relationship of the church to the city in NT times.
In a significant statement Jesus tells his followers that they are a 'city on a hill' (not geographical Jerusalem). Communities of Christ-followers are God's 'city' within every earthly city.
The change in mission:
Keller outlines the book of Acts' strategy of reaching cities with the gospel and concludes with this great one liner about the need for incarnational living:
Does this point to overall aim as well?
Cities. People are moving to cities at a much faster rate than the church is. in 1950, just 60 years ago there were only two cities bigger then 10m people in population (NY & London), today there are more than 20.
Western cities such as NY grow at an average of 125,000 people every year.
We have reached the point where over 50% of the world population now live in cities, compared to around 5% two centuries ago.
There are 5 million people moving into the cities of the developing world every month. We should be planting a thousand urban churches in the world every month just to keep up.
Cities appeal to:
1. Younger people. Findings by the Pew Research Centre show that 45% of 18-30 year old would like to live in NYC, but people with families and older people don't want to. Only 14% of people aged 35 or older are interested in living in cities.
2. The 'cultural elites'. MTV has been able to erode national identities faster than communism could. 15yr olds in rural Mexico are now more 'urban' in their sensibilities than their parents are, because of MTV.
3. Accessible 'unreached' people groups. Immigrants to urban areas have many reasons to begin attending churches, reasons that they did not have in their former, rural settings.
4. The poor. Our commitment to the poor is a testimony to the cultural elites, supporting the validity of our message.
Something close to 50% of the world's population live in cities.
Agglomeration refers to the economic and social benefits of physically locating near one another in business... the physical clustering of thousands of people who work in the same field naturally generates new ideas and enterprises.
Face to face vs electronic interaction:
Researchers at University of Michigan gave two groups of people rules to a game and gave one group 10 minutes of face to face interaction to discuss strategy and the other group 30 minutes of electronic interaction. The group of face to facers consistently did much better: 'face to face contact leads to more trust, generosity, and cooperation than any other sort of interaction.'
The city reveals the gospel to us and also our deficit in understanding it. We meet people who are more gifted, kinder, wiser and more generous than Christians. This forces us to relearn our gospel of 'grace' and not 'merit'. Why would we expect Christians to be nicer/wiser/better people if God's choosing of us is indeed by grace through faith.
This is a useful, 'how should we think about others and population centres' not just 'cities':
Marks of a true church:
What it does: the Word rightly believed and declared and the sacraments and discipline rightly administered.
What its purpose is: the worship of God, the edification of the saints and the witness to the world.
Culturally neutral church? Church for everyone?
renting space for a church to meet and worship rather than owning property can result in church members feeling very little responsibility to 'love their neighbours':
Chapter 16: The Cultural Responses of the Church
The four types of response in church to the crisis in the culture:
The Transformationist Model:
Probably the least known model among evangelicals.
Based on the idea that there are two kingdoms:
Chapter 17: Why all models are right... and wrong
What is the real issue? The trouble is that every model has rightly identified a real need and yet focusing on and addressing that need, often leads to the exclusion of or oversight of other 'needs' within the church that are then rightly identified by the other models. Keller suggest two questions about culture to help carve a way forward together:
1) Should we be pessimistic or optimistic about the possibility for cultural change?
2) Is the current culture redeemable and good, or fundamentally fallen?
Our answers to these questions reveal our alignments with biblical emphases as well as our imbalances.
On 1 he says:
This complex and rich understanding of cultural change throws a new light on each model. Each model has a tendency, especially among some of its more strident proponents, to be either too optimistic or too pessimistic about culture change. And within the groups that tend toward optimism, they tend to be too limited in their understanding of how culture can be changed. Some see the importance of arguing for truth claims, while others put more emphasis on the importance of communities and of historical processes - but any one of these can be the crucial factor in a culture shift. All of them can play a part and none of the current models give equal or adequate weight to them all.
How the various chapters of gospel shed light on our attitudes to culture:
Creation:
The material world is important. Unlike other ancient creation accounts and religions, Christianity enforces a 'saw that it was good' attitude on us toward the created world. If God is actively involved in the created world and if he both cultivates creation and saves souls with his truth - how can one say that an artist or banker is engaged in 'secular' work and that only professional ministers are doing 'the Lord's work'?
Adam and Eve are called to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion:
Sin infects and affects every part of life. Schaeffer comments:
Cultural products should not be judged as 'good if Christians make them' and 'bad if non-Christians make them.' Each should be evaluated on its own merit as to whether it serves God or an idol.
Redemption and restoration:
Isaac Watts: 'He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.'
Grace does not do away with thinking and speaking, art and science, theatre and literature, business and economics; it remakes and restores what is amiss.
The kingdom of God is both now and not yet. Geerhardus Vos puts it well in The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church:
1) the main way to see the kingdom forces of God at work is in the institutional church, whose main job is to minister through the Word and sacrament to win people and disciple them in Christ.
2) when Christians are living in society to God's glory, this, too is a manifestation of the kingdom of God.
What do we learn from this brief survey? Balance. The word balance is thrust at us again.
There is then presented a great illustration picturing the various church streams against the others for where they emphasise cultural engagement / non engagement and common grace in society vs no common grace in society.
Chapter 18: Cultural Engagement Through Blended Insights
Given that we each have our own baggage (history, temperament, tradition and context) this chapter is about how to operate faithfully and skilfully within the model you inhabit.
Seek the Centre
Seek out and discern the various good bits of other models. He then lists the main 'good bits' of the other models:
Relevants: Since we're told seek the peace and prosperity of the city Christians should be known for serving the people whether those people embrace Christianity or not.
Transformationists: Good at discipling people in the world and not just taking people 'into the church' to train them as believers.
Counterculturalists: Rightly argue that the Christian witness is strongest within a redeemed corporate body called the church.
Two Kingdoms: Practical and useful insights into how excellent work within the world is a good form of Christian witness and pleasing to God.
The errors we must avoid: triumphalism or withdrawal, cultural compromise or cultural withdrawal.
For example:
1) adopt it and embrace it
2) transform it and redeem it
3) reject if altogether
The question is asked; should we then create a new model that sits in the middle of every error? Keller doesn't believe so for the reason that culture is never static and so the church will always need to be different depending on context and time. Keller then presents a 4 season cycle to church and culture:
Evangelising is a duty of a Christian as is helping the poor but these are also gifts - some people are especially gifted to do evangelism, and others to show mercy to those in need. The problems that people often identify and bewail are usually a sign of their gifts and passions. People often need to be shown how their gift is giving them tunnel vision but also they need to be released to express and use their gift as much as they can.
Act, don't react:
1. Avoid arrogance.
It is extremely easy to believe that the culture model that has helped you the most is the best one for everyone. It is especially easy to feel superior if you compare the strengths of your favourite model with the weaknesses of the others. Don't do that. Do not think that your particular tradition is 'the new thing God is doing' and all the others are fading away. A balanced assessment shows that none of the various traditions for engaging with culture are dying. Each has serious weaknesses but also great strengths.
2. Avoid blame.
If you have grown by adopting another culture model, you may feel angry or betrayed by the former one. You may have had good or bad personal experiences at the hands of cultural elites, which may have influenced you unduly. You may blame a certain model for all the trouble of the church because rabid proponents hurt the last congregation of which you were a member. Forgive, and look for places where you can repent. Try to remove the personal histories as you think about culture. Look at the Bible, the cultural moment and your gifts.
3. Avoid frustration.
If you are in a church of denomination that does not share the cultural model you feel is best, it can have a radicalising effect on you. Opposition can push you into more extreme forms of your position. Don't let conflict make you too rigid a proponent for your approach.
4. Avoid naïveté.
Some people say 'a plague on all your houses' and insist that one church transcend all models or incorporate them all. Because every church and Christian has history, a temperament, and a unique take on various theological issues, every church and Christian will be situated in some tradition and model. It is inescapable. The gospel should give us the humility both to appreciate other models and to acknowledged that we have a model of our own. So enjoy the strengths of your position, admit the weaknesses, and borrow like crazy from the strengths of the others.
MOVEMENT
Part 6: Missional Community
Chapter 19: The Search for the Missional Church
The word missional first became popular after the 1998 publication of the boot titled Missional Church. The word gets used in differing ways leading to confusion. Before its popularisation the word was used primarily in mainline Protestant and ecumenical circles, linked to the Latin phrase Missio Dei coined by Karl Barth referring to God's action in the world. After 1952 this action was more specifically used to refer to God's work to redeem the entire creation.
The shift went from:
Mission is about saving souls or as a way of expanding the church but... when we understand that God is 'on mission' meaning that the whole of God's nature as Trinity is already on mission, then the church simply joins him on it. The Father sends the Son, the Father and the Son send the Spirit and the Spirit sends the church. Mission isn't a dept. of the church but concerns everything she does.
Seen in that way 'mission' becomes something that ought to be seen in the doctrine of the Trinity, not ecclesiology or soteriology.
God does not send the church on mission. God is on mission and the church joins him.
Newbigin saw this theology, although sound in doctrine, gave rise to form of liberalism that left the church with little relevance. People began to emphasise God the Father's activity in the world to bring peace and hope and justice and our Spirit-empowered mandate to help governing bodies and secular organisations achieve their goals. This way of thinking left little room for the Son's mission to seek and save lost souls. He insisted:
Leslie Newbigin had been a British missionary in India for several decades. When he returned to England in the mid-1970s, he saw the massive decline of the church and Christian influence that had occurred in his absence. At the time he left England, Western society's main cultural institutions still Christianised people, and the churches were easily gathering those who came to their doors through social expectation and custom. Churches in the West had always supported 'missions' in overseas non-Christian cultures (such as India). There on the 'mission field' churches functioned in a different way that they did in Europe and North America. Churches in India did not merely support missions or even do missions - they were missional in every aspect. They could not simply process Christianised people as churches did in the West. Rather, every aspect of their church life - worship preaching, community life and discipleship - had to be a form of mission.
For example on the mission field, visitors to a worship service could not be expected to have nay familiarity with Christianity. therefore the worship and preaching had to address them in ways both comprehensible and challenging. On the mission field, believers lived in a society with radically different values from those they were taught in church. This made 'life in the world' very complicated for Christians. Discipleship and training had to equip believers to answer many hostile questions from their neighbours. It also had to spell out Christian personal and corporate behaviour patterns that distinguished them and showed society what the kingdom of God was all about. In other words, away from the West, churches did not simply have a missions department; Christians were 'in mission' in every aspect of their public and private lives.
When he returned to England, Newbigin discover that the ground had shifted. the cultural institutions of society were now indifferent or overtly hostile to Christian faith, and the number of people who went to church had plummeted. Western culture was fast becoming a non-Christian society - a 'mission field - but the church were making little adjustment. While many Christian leaders were bemoaning the cultural changes, Western churches continued to minister as before - creating an environment in which only traditional and conservative people would feel comfortable. they continued to disciple people by focusing on individual skills for their private lives (Bible study and prayer) but failed to train them to live distinctively Christian lives in a secular world - in the public arenas of politics, art, and business. All they preached and practiced assumed they were still in the Christian West, but the Christian West was vanishing.
Newbigin rejected the view that the West was becoming a secular society without God, instead seeing that it had become a pagan one, a society filled with idols and false gods.
He then went on to argue that the church, far from being irrelevant ought to be:
Observing potential problems within the conversation over missional church:
Problem 1: Not comprehensive enough
We must be evangelistic however, the typical evangelical gospel presentation is too shallow.
Many people writing about missional church insist that missional = incarnational which = non-Sunday centric, oikos approach of relationships and deeply embedded in the community.
Keller pastored a small church in a working-class town for 10 years. He recognises that both attractional (large) and incarnational (small and house based) have their value:
In restating the gospel many have redefined it. Many missional churches emphasis the horizontal (relational/communal) aspects of sin but at the denial and detriment of the vertical (it offends God) level.
The marks of a missional church
1. It confront the society's idols.
2. It realises that most of our more recently formulated and popular gospel presentations will fall on deaf ears.
3. It affirms 'every member missionary'
4. It understands itself as a servant community - a counterculture for the common good
5. It should expect nonbelievers to be involved in most aspects of the church's life and ministry
6. It should practise Christian unity on the local level as much as possible
Church quote:
Chapter 21: Equipping People for Missional Living
It is the responsibility of the ordained leadership to build up the church and its members through the ministry of the Word and sacraments. However, one critical focus of that ministry must now be the discipling of the laity for ministry in the world.
John Stott: There has always been a strong tendency for Christians to withdraw into a kind of closed, evangelical, monastic community.
In the book of Acts not only the apostles (5:42) but every Christian (8:4) did evangelism - and they did so endlessly. Every Christian was expected to evangelise, follow up, nurture, and teach people the Word. This happened relationally - one person bringing the gospel to another within the context of a relationship.
Michael Green: early Christianity's explosive growth 'was in reality accomplished by means of informal missionaries... in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls... they did it naturally.
Not all evangelism was informal however. There were also many forms of evangelism in the early church that required great training and expertise, including synagogue preaching and open-air preaching, as well as public teaching and 'dialogical' evangelism.
'Dialogical' is most likely a form of interactive dialogue with all comers about the Christian faith in the model of Paul who in the hall of Tyrannus daily for two years he discussed the faith with people (A19).
Evangelism however, started and took most root, at home:
He also points out how many of the significant early church fathers became believers through a friend leading them to Christ.
Keller then gives lots of practical examples of what modern day gospelising could look like in the course of friendship. Really good material for helping people think practically about evangelism.
In all the examples the basic form of the gospel ministry is the same:
Why is there so little relational integrity among believers? Keller suggests that the answer is motivational:
People who are in the blend-in mode often lack courage. They are (rightly) concerned about losing influence, being persecuted in behind-the-scenes ways, or bing penalised professionally.
Those in the bubble mode are unwilling to make the emotional, social, or even financial and physical investment in the people around them.
The second necessary factor in personal evangelism:
Pastoral support
Pastors need to support their church in this mission by modelling how to talk to people about faith issues and how to pray for them.
The gospel also keeps us from being tied to our reputation and so frees us from the fear that stops us sharing our faith.
Keller:
Putting on meetings or gatherings in which nonbelievers are exposed more directly to both Christians and to the gospel. Avoid confusing newcomers and offending them. Using your ingenuity try to image a variety of meetings and places where people without faith can, through a winsome approach be stimulated to consider the claims of the Christian gospel. Some examples...
Integrated ministry is to the be the goal we pursue. Evangelism needn't be chosen over discipleship just as teaching needn't be chosen over practical ministry to address people's needs. Because of the gospel:
Many churches are committed to the poor and issues of social justice. Still others make much of the importance of culture and the arts. But seldom are these traits combined:
The metaphors of the church. Edmund Clowney points out that there are literally dozens of them. He lists 81 of them:
From Genesis to Revelation Babylon is pictured as the epitome of a civilisation built on selfishness, pride and violence and yet when in captivity God tells his people to "seek the peace and prosperity of the city." They weren't to form a ghetto but instead they were told to use their resources for the common good. This is quite a balance!
Chapter 12: Redemption and the city
Having an exilic model helps us understand the relationship of the church to the city in NT times.
In a significant statement Jesus tells his followers that they are a 'city on a hill' (not geographical Jerusalem). Communities of Christ-followers are God's 'city' within every earthly city.
The change in mission:
In the Old Testament the mission was 'centripetal'. The pagan nations were expected to look at Israel and be drawn to ask and look and worship God. But in the New Testament, mission becomes 'centrifugal' - moving outward from the centre. The people of God are sent out to the world to proclaim the gospel. The Babylonian exile and Jonah's mission are foreshadowings of this future change.Another change:
The Jews in Babylon were still expected to keep the Mosaic code, dress differently and eat differently from the country they were in. In the NT (as seen in the example of Peter's invitation to see Cornelius) these regulations and distinctions become obsolete. Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinner as a strategy for ministry. Adopting these NT teachings frees Christians to participate in a city's culture more fully than the Jews in Babylon could. Although it makes the danger of assimilation and compromise more acute for Christians.God's people lived together in three configurations in the scripture:
Abraham's day onwards: extended biological familyMoses' day onwards: nation-stateExile and onwards: dispersed fellowship of congregations (synagogues)The church continues to exist as a dispersed group of people (James 1:1, 1 Pet. 1:1).
Keller outlines the book of Acts' strategy of reaching cities with the gospel and concludes with this great one liner about the need for incarnational living:
Commuter Christianity (living in salubrious suburbia and commuting to an urban church) is no substitute for incarnational involvement.In the book of Revelation we see the tree of life planted by a central river. This appears to be the Garden of Eden in its cultivated form, it is a garden-city.
Does this point to overall aim as well?
Many Christians assume that the final goal of Christ's redemption is to return us to a rural, Edenic world. Based on this assumption, the work of Christians is exclusively to evangelise and disciple. But Revelation shows us this is not the case. God's intention for human endeavour is that it raise up civilisations -cities- that glorify him and steward the endless wonders and riches that God put into the created world.Chapter 13: The call to the city
Cities. People are moving to cities at a much faster rate than the church is. in 1950, just 60 years ago there were only two cities bigger then 10m people in population (NY & London), today there are more than 20.
Western cities such as NY grow at an average of 125,000 people every year.
We have reached the point where over 50% of the world population now live in cities, compared to around 5% two centuries ago.
There are 5 million people moving into the cities of the developing world every month. We should be planting a thousand urban churches in the world every month just to keep up.
Waves of immigration from the Southern and Eastern hemispheres are coming to the cities of North America and Europe. Many of these immigrants come from parts of the world where belief in orthodox, supernatural Christianity is on the rise. As a result, thousands of new churches are being planted by non-Westerners in the formerly secular cities of London, Paris and NY. In fact most of the largest well-attended churches in London and Paris are led by Africans and in NYC we have seen hundreds of new churches started by Christians from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa.You can't reach the city from the suburbs but you can reach the suburbs from the city. Cities are like a giant heart drawing people in and then sending them out.
Cities appeal to:
1. Younger people. Findings by the Pew Research Centre show that 45% of 18-30 year old would like to live in NYC, but people with families and older people don't want to. Only 14% of people aged 35 or older are interested in living in cities.
2. The 'cultural elites'. MTV has been able to erode national identities faster than communism could. 15yr olds in rural Mexico are now more 'urban' in their sensibilities than their parents are, because of MTV.
3. Accessible 'unreached' people groups. Immigrants to urban areas have many reasons to begin attending churches, reasons that they did not have in their former, rural settings.
4. The poor. Our commitment to the poor is a testimony to the cultural elites, supporting the validity of our message.
The church can no longer ignore the profound and irreversible changes occurring in the world today. If Christians want to reach the unreached, we must go to the cities. To reach the rising generations, we must go to the cities. To have any impact for Christ on the creation of culture, we must go to the cities. To serve the poor, we must go to the cities.On the personal cost of living in the cities:
While Christians should not deliberately seek difficult for its own sake, can we not follow the example of the incarnate Christ, who did no live in places where he was comfortable but went where he was useful? Can we not face difficulty for his sake, embraceChapter 14: The Gospel For the City
Something close to 50% of the world's population live in cities.
Agglomeration refers to the economic and social benefits of physically locating near one another in business... the physical clustering of thousands of people who work in the same field naturally generates new ideas and enterprises.
Face to face vs electronic interaction:
Researchers at University of Michigan gave two groups of people rules to a game and gave one group 10 minutes of face to face interaction to discuss strategy and the other group 30 minutes of electronic interaction. The group of face to facers consistently did much better: 'face to face contact leads to more trust, generosity, and cooperation than any other sort of interaction.'
The city reveals the gospel to us and also our deficit in understanding it. We meet people who are more gifted, kinder, wiser and more generous than Christians. This forces us to relearn our gospel of 'grace' and not 'merit'. Why would we expect Christians to be nicer/wiser/better people if God's choosing of us is indeed by grace through faith.
Early in Redeemer's ministry, we discovered it was misguided for Christians to feel pity for the city, and it was harmful to think of ourselves as its 'saviour'. We had to humbly learn from and respect our city and its people. Our relationship with them had to be a consciously reciprocal one. We had to be willing to see God's common grace in their lives. We had to learn that we needed them fill out our own understanding of God and his grace, just as they needed us.How the gospel affects us:
The gospel alone can give us the humility (I have much to learn from the city), the confidence (I have much to give to the city), and the courage (I have nothing to fear from the city) to do effective ministry that honours God and blesses others.What should Christians do about cities?
This is a useful, 'how should we think about others and population centres' not just 'cities':
- Christians should develop appreciative attitudes toward the city. How can you as a church/individual live out this value if you are not located near a metropolitan area? I believe the best strategy is to include urban ministry in your global missions portfolio.
- Christians should become a dynamic counterculture where they live. The city God wants is built on service not selfishness.
- Christians should be a community radically committed to the good of their city as a whole. We must work for the peace, security, justice and prosperity of their neighbours, loving them in word and deed.
Counter-cultural:
Christians are called to be an alternate city within every earthly city, an alternate human culture within every human culture - to show how sex, money, and power can be used in nondestructive ways; to show how classes and races that cannot get along outside of Christ can get along in him; and to show how it is possible to cultivate by using the tools of art, education, government and business to bring hope to people rather than despair or cynicism.Not great churches:
Christians should seek to live in the city, not to use the city to build great churches but to use the resources of the church to seek a great, flourishing city. We refer to this as a 'city growth' model of ministry rather than a strictly 'church growth' model.Seven features of a church for the city:
- Respect for urban sensibility
- Unusual sensitivity to cultural differences
- Commitment to neighbourhood and justice
- Integration of faith and work
- Bias for complex evangelism
- Preaching that both attracts and challenges urban people
- Commitment to artistry and creativity
Respecting urban sensibility:
Christians who move to cities within their own country often underestimate the importance of the small cultural differences they have with urbanites. They speak and act in ways that are out of step with urban sensibilities, and if this is pointed out to them, they despise the criticism as snobbishness.
Marks of a true church:
What it does: the Word rightly believed and declared and the sacraments and discipline rightly administered.
What its purpose is: the worship of God, the edification of the saints and the witness to the world.
Culturally neutral church? Church for everyone?
No church can be all things to all people. There is no culturally neutral way of doing ministry. the urban church will have to choose practices that reflect the values of some cultural group and in so doing it will communicate in ways that different cultural groups will see and hear differently. As soon as it chooses a language to preach in, or the music it will sing, it is making it easier for some people to participate and more difficult for others.Are using or loving?
Urban churches train their members to be neighbours in the city, not just consumers... Cities are theme parks that attract young professionals... who view the city as simply a place where they can have fun, develop a resume, and make friends who will be of help to them in the future. They plan to do this for a few years and then leave. In other words they are using the city rather than living in it as neighbours.Personal piety and faith at work:
Traditional evangelical churches tend to emphasise personal piety and rarely help believers understand how to maintain and apply their Christian beliefs and practice in the worlds of the arts, business, scholarship, and government. Many churches simply do not know how to disciple members without essentially pulling them out of their vocation and inviting them to become heavily involved in church activities. In other words Christian discipleship is interpreted as consisting largely of activities done in the evening or on the weekend.An 'occupational hazard':
renting space for a church to meet and worship rather than owning property can result in church members feeling very little responsibility to 'love their neighbours':
It is important for church that rent space to own their neighbourhood. Church leaders should therefore be intentional about inhabiting their neighbourhood. They should go to local community boards and neighbourhood association meetings, as well as contact local government officials and representatives to discover how they can best serve the needs of the neighbourhood.Churches must be committed to evangelism:
Urban evangelism requires immersion in the various cultures' greatest hopes, fears, views, and objections to Christianity. It requires a creative host of different means and venues, and it takes great courage.Evangelistic worship and preaching pointers:
- First: Ground moral exhortation in Christ and his work.
- Second: Be very careful to think about your audience's premises. Eg. don't assume that the Bible is everyone's accepted authority. Reason from empirical science as well.
- Third: Do 'apologetic sidebars'. Try and devote one of the three/four sermon points mainly to the doubts and concerns of nonbelievers. Jude 22 'be merciful to those who doubt.'
- Fourth: Address different groups directly, 'if you are committed to Christ you may be thinking... if you are not a Christian or not sure what you believe...'
- Fifth: Consider demeanour. The young secularists of NYC are extremely sensitive to anything that smacks of artifice (trickery) to them. Anything that is too polished, too controlled, too canned will seem like salesmanship. They will be turned off if they hear a preacher use noninclusive gender languages, make cynical remarks about other religions, adopt a tone of voice they consider forced or inauthentic, or use insider evangelical tribal jargon. In particular, they will feel 'beaten up' if a pastor yells at them. The kind of preaching that sounds passionate in the heartland may sound like a dangerous rant in certain subcultures in the city.
- Sixth: Show deep acquaintance with the same books, magazines, blogs, movies and plays that your audience knows.
Artistry and creativity:
According to the US census, between 1970 and 1990 the humber of people describing themselves as 'artist' more than doubled from 737, 000 to 1.7 million. Since 1990 it continued to grow another 16% to nearly 2 million.
Part 5: Cultural Engagement
Chapter 15: The cultural crisis of the church
The church is in a state of crisis. Arguing within itself about a lot of central theological issues, due mainly to not being able to agree on how to respond to and engage with the culture around it. Where and when and over what should the church fight? It finds itself within a new world of anti-christianity intolerance and can't agree on how to respond.
Keller says that as a result of fundamentalist-modernism at the beginning of the 20th C Christians began breaking from mainstream society to begin their own schools, universities, publishing companies, television networks, radio shows etc. thus leaving the mainstream institutions in secular, liberal hands.
The aftermath of World War II was that both in Europe and in the States church attendance nose-dived. Attitudes toward moral authority shifted radically as the basic 'mood' of society altered.
Stats:
Keller says that as a result of fundamentalist-modernism at the beginning of the 20th C Christians began breaking from mainstream society to begin their own schools, universities, publishing companies, television networks, radio shows etc. thus leaving the mainstream institutions in secular, liberal hands.
The aftermath of World War II was that both in Europe and in the States church attendance nose-dived. Attitudes toward moral authority shifted radically as the basic 'mood' of society altered.
Stats:
Church attendance dropped from approximately 50% of the population in 1958 to about 40% in 1969, the fastest decline ever recorded in such a short span of time.
Even more striking was the decline among people in their twenties:
in 1957, 51% of the members of that age group attended church; by 1971, that number had fallen to 28%
European cultural shift:
Francis Schaeffer commented on the attitudes of thoroughly secular Europeans: to them the world is a mass of flying unrelated particles and they feel upon them the necessity of running away and standing still at the same time.
In the 'old world' many of the tenants of Christian belief were accepted and believed. In the 'new' world 'the gospel message [is] not simply being rejected; it [is] becoming incomprehensible and increasingly hated.'
In the 1940s a Christian minister could say to almost any young adult in the country, 'be good!' and they would know what he was talking about. By the late 1970s, if you said, 'Be good!' the answer would be, 'What's your definition of good? I might have a different one. And who are you to impose your view on me?'
What caused the shift?
Some point to the Enlightenment philosophies; the emphasis on the individual and the belief that everything had to be proved to one's own reason.
Others point to Romanticism which was a reaction against the emphasis placed on science and reason in the Enlightenment. It emphasises experience and feeling but is still deeply individualistic and anti-traditional.
Still others argue that it isn't so much intellectual beliefs as it is new social realities that affected social beliefs: capitalism, air travel, television, contraception, the Internet. As innovations they have undermined traditional moral values in favour of individual choice and freedom.
The stance of pietism
The most common response among evangelical churches was to ignore culture and instead stress personal conversion and the spiritual growth of the individual. Culture simply wasn't seen as the issue that needed to be addressed: if we had more Christians in the world culture would be more just and moral - was the implicit response.
Francis Schaeffer commented on the attitudes of thoroughly secular Europeans: to them the world is a mass of flying unrelated particles and they feel upon them the necessity of running away and standing still at the same time.
In the 'old world' many of the tenants of Christian belief were accepted and believed. In the 'new' world 'the gospel message [is] not simply being rejected; it [is] becoming incomprehensible and increasingly hated.'
In the 1940s a Christian minister could say to almost any young adult in the country, 'be good!' and they would know what he was talking about. By the late 1970s, if you said, 'Be good!' the answer would be, 'What's your definition of good? I might have a different one. And who are you to impose your view on me?'
What caused the shift?
Some point to the Enlightenment philosophies; the emphasis on the individual and the belief that everything had to be proved to one's own reason.
Others point to Romanticism which was a reaction against the emphasis placed on science and reason in the Enlightenment. It emphasises experience and feeling but is still deeply individualistic and anti-traditional.
Still others argue that it isn't so much intellectual beliefs as it is new social realities that affected social beliefs: capitalism, air travel, television, contraception, the Internet. As innovations they have undermined traditional moral values in favour of individual choice and freedom.
The stance of pietism
The most common response among evangelical churches was to ignore culture and instead stress personal conversion and the spiritual growth of the individual. Culture simply wasn't seen as the issue that needed to be addressed: if we had more Christians in the world culture would be more just and moral - was the implicit response.
Young Christians had ministers and missionaries - not artists or business leaders - lifted before them as the ideals, not because involvement in culture was bad; it just wasn't the important thing. All were encouraged to enter full-time Christian ministry in order to evangelise the world.
Pietism derives from German-speaking central Europe in the 17thC in which the emphasis moved from doctrinal precision to spiritual experience, from clergy-led efforts to lay ministry and from efforts to reform the intellectual and social order to an emphasis on evangelistic mission and personal discipleship.
Other models that developed: The religious right (a politically motivated model that sees Christ's lordship over everything as its main motivation), The seeker church movement:
Both of these models emphasise different attitudes to culture:Other models that developed: The religious right (a politically motivated model that sees Christ's lordship over everything as its main motivation), The seeker church movement:
It's recommended solution was not 'church as usual' (as with those who held on to pietistic stance); nor was it 'politics with a vengeance' (as with the Religious Right). Instead, this movement spoke frequently of the church's irrelevance and sought to 'reinvent church' - principally by adapting sophisticated marketing and product development techniques from the business world - so it would appeal to secular, unchurched people.
- Religious Right sought to aggressively change culture
- Seeker church movement called Christians to become relevant to it
By the late 1990s a new trend appeared known as the 'emerging church' which emphasised Leslie Newbigin's call to 'have a missionary encounter with Western culture' was lifted up.
The emerging church saw that both the RR and SM was wrong in the way it approached culture: The RR was captive to a 'naive loyalty Americanisation and free market capitalism' and the SM had 'sold out' to individualism and consumerism:
To many Christians, both groups had become captive to Western, modern, Enlightenment culture.Emerging churches know what they 'don't' want: the cultural obliviousness of pietism, the triumphalism of the RR and the lack of reflection and dept of most seeker churches.
Chapter 16: The Cultural Responses of the Church
The four types of response in church to the crisis in the culture:
- Transformationist model
- Relevance model
- Counterculturalist model
- Two Kingdoms model
Why use models at all in wrestling with the idea of Christ and Culture?
We can't make sense of what people do without relating them to others and noticing continuities and contrasts.Miraslov Volf argues that there are two dangers Christians face when thinking about culture : idleness and coerciveness
The Transformationist Model:
Since the Lordship of Christ should be brought to bear on every area of life - economics and business, government and politics, literature and art, journalism and the media, science and law and education - Christians should be labouring to transform culture, to (literally) change the world.All people working within this model hold several commonalities:
- They view 'secular' work as an important way to serve Christ and his kingdom, just as is ministry within the church. Christ saving purposes include not only individual salvation but also the renewal of the material world.
- They celebrate and assign high value to Christians who excel in their work and enter spheres of influence within business, the media, government and politics, the academy and the arts.
- They believe that the main problem is a secularism that has dishonestly demanded a 'naked public square' of beliefs while insisting that everyone in the public square does in fact hold to a belief, namely secularism.
Problems with this approach:
- It places too much emphasis on worldview as being something learnt and taught, whereas much of it has to do with a set of hopes and loves. These are not at all adopted consciously and deliberately.
- Transformationalism is often marked by 'an under appreciation for the church...' The 'real action' they imply takes place outside of the church. Much of the excitement and creative energy ends up focusing on cosmic or social redemption rather than on bringing about personal conversion through evangelism and discipleship.
- It tends to be triumphalist, self-righteous and overconfident in its ability to both understand God's will for society and bring it about.
- Transformationists have often put too much stock in politics as a way to change culture. Attitudes toward sexuality, as one example, have changed not because of legislation but because of pop culture, the arts, academic institutions. Legislation followed last of all. Politics then is 'downstream' from the true sources of cultural change. Politics helps to cement cultural changes, but it typically does not lead them.
- It doesn't recognise the dangers of power. There are numerous examples of how the church loses its vitality when Christianity and the state are too closely wedded.
The Relevance Model:
The common characteristics of those who hold this model:
- Optimism about cultural trends. They feel less need to reflect on them, exercise discernment, and respond to them in discriminating ways.
- An emphasis on the 'common good' and 'human flourishing'. They emphasise the modern church's failure to care about inequality, injustice, and suffering in the world.
- The concept of 'worldview' isn't used. It assumes, in their mind, a much greater gap between Christian truth and human culture than they think exists.
- They locate the main problem as being in the church's incomprehensibility to the minds and hearts of secular people and its irrelevance to the problems of society.
- They see little distinction between how individual Christians should act in the world and how the institutional church should function. There is a blanket call for the church to become deeply involved in the struggle for social justice.
Some of the problems with the Relevance Model may be:
- By adapting so heavily and readily to the culture, such churches are quickly seen as dated whenever the culture shifts or changes. By downplaying their doctrinal beliefs and by removing the supernatural element many of these churches look like any other social service. Causing some to ask 'why does it exist? Why do we need this institution when it is doing, often somewhat amateurishly, what so many secular institutions are doing more effectively?'
- The attitude taken by this stance toward doctrine. Of all the models, this one most often downplays the need for both theological precision and the insights of Christian tradition.
- The main energy behind churches that follow this model is often directed not toward the teaching of the gospel and seeking conversions but toward producing art, doing service projects, or seeking justice. Churches that lose their commitment and skill for vigorous evangelism will not only neglect their primary calling, but will inevitably fail to reproduce themselves. It takes new converts and changed lives for churches to truly be of service to the community. Tradition churches with their emphasis on theological training, catechesis and liturgical and ecclesiastical practices produced real character and ethical change, but this kind of spiritual formation often does not occur in the typical evangelical megachurch.
- The distinctiveness of the Christian church can begin to get blurry. Traditionally the church has been seen as the only institution that ministers the Word and the sacraments; that determines what is the true, biblical preaching of the Word; and that brings people into a community governed and disciplined by called and authorised leaders.
The Counterculturalist Model:
The church is seen as a contrast society to the world.
- Those operating in this model do not see God working redemptively through cultural movements: 'the world for all its beauty is hostile to the truth.'
- It calls the church to avoid concentrating on the culture, looking for ways to become relevant to it, reach it, or transform it. If there is a crisis at all today it is because the world has invaded the church, and consequently the church is not truly being the church.
- It criticises most other conservative evangelical churches for falling for the 'Constaninian error' of seeking to reform the world to be like the church.
- Instead of trying to change the culture the church ought to instead follow Christ 'outside the camp' and identify with the poor and marginalised. The Christian life is a life of simplicity, of material self-denial for the sake of charity, justice and community. It means decreasing geographical mobility (by committing to a local church and a neighbourhood) and social mobility (by giving away large amounts of your income to those in need).
This model has a lot of intellectual firepower behind it. Criticisms of it and problems in it would be:
- It is more pessimistic about the prospect of social change than is warranted. Wilberforce's accomplishment was a legitimate victory and a worthwhile good.
- The Counterculturalist model tends to demonise modern business markets and government. and as such they depend on the state and other powers being corrupt for their identity to hold together.
- They overlook or don't recognise the impossibility of being culturally neutral. The human culture we live in affects how we live out the Christian life and by virtue of existing we are affecting the culture around us.
- People in this model have tended to over emphasise the 'horizontal' nature of sin and donwplay the vertical aspect of it (an offence to God's holiness). Christus Victor is the atonement model of choice (Christ defeating the powers on the cross) and some Anabaptists theologians have rejected the notion of propitiation as a 'violent' theory of the atonement.
- Because it emphasises 'belonging' over 'believing' so much it isn't particularly effective or faithful in its gospel proclamation and calling individuals to repentance.
Keller in this point (1. above) also quotes the following, that I thought good enough I wanted to separate it out:
A much subtler yet powerful example is the Christianisation of Europe. Christianity permanently altered the old honour-based European cultures in which pride was valued rather than humility, dominance rather than service, courage rather than peaceableness, glory more than modesty, loyalty to one's own tribe rather than equal respect for all individuals. Even though there is some slippage in Western society back toward that pagan worldview, today's secular Europeans are still influenced far more by the Christian ethic than by the old pagan ones. And, by and large, Western societies are more humane places to live because of it. In other words Christianity transformed a pagan culture.Commenting on church models Keller also makes the following statement:
Any element within a model that cuts off the motivation for vigorous evangelism can undermine the entire model. Without a steady stream of new converts and changed lives, the vitality and vision of the model cannot be fully realised.The Two Kingdoms Model
Probably the least known model among evangelicals.
Based on the idea that there are two kingdoms:
- The 'common kingdom' (earthly or sometimes 'left hand' kingdom). Humans beings all live in this kingdom of God's common grace: 'believers do not try to impose biblical standard on a society but instead appeal to common understandings of the good, the true and the beautiful shared by all people. We love and serve our neighbours in this common kingdom.'
- The 'redemptive kingdom' (or righthand kingdom).
Advocates of this model believe the main problem stems from confusing these two kingdoms. The common characteristics in this kingdom are:
- High value placed on 'secular' work. All work is a way to serve God and our neighbour. Luther: taught that - all work is the way in which God does his work in the world, and therefore all work is a calling from God.
- We work in the world but do not seek to do our work in a uniquely 'christian' way. All that occurs in the temporal realm where work is done is bound to pass away. God's ruling power in the common kingdom is simply to restrain evil not 'heal' creation. Separate from transformationists and similar to counterculturists on this point.
- Two Kingdoms advocates see the state/government as being neutral, neither is it bad needing to be transformed or is it violent and wicked needing to be resisted.
- Are very guarded about how much improvement can ever be made in the natural kingdom.
There is still a range on opinions within this model particularly about how a Christian is mean to work within society.
Problems with this model:
- It gives more weight and credit to the notion of common grace than the Bible does. It also overlooks the degenerate nature of man that makes him more inclined to suppress the truth and ignore the light in favour of sin and darkness and self-obsession.
- Overlooks the significance of Biblical revelation and insight and assumes that common grace is 'enough' to arrive at many of the virtues secular society holds to. Keller points out that the idea of 'human rights' originated in the Christian idea of Imago Dei. No other societies saw all people as equal and in fact people like Aristotle taught that some people were 'born to be slaves'. With Imago Dei, these ideas changed. Points out that although Wilberforce needed common grace in his non-Christian recipients to cause them to 'resonate' with what he was saying, it was his Christian teaching that showed him the error of slavery in a way that no one else was saying or had seen.
- Implies that it is possible for human life to be conducted on a neutral basis. That isn't the case. Worldview's originate from non-provable statements of faith that aren't neutral.
- It doesn't cause Christians to want to 'stand up' and help change society.
- Contributes to too great a hierarchy between clergy and laypeople.
Keller comments that:
Our practices are unavoidably grounded in fundamental beliefs about right and wrong, human nature and destiny, the meaning of life, what is wrong with human society, and what will fix it. All of these working assumptions are based on non provable faith assumptions about human nature and spiritual reality.
Michael Sandel (from Harvard):
states that all theories of justice are 'inescapably judgmental'. You cannot hold a position on financial bailouts, surrogate motherhood, same-sex marriage, affirmative action, or CEO pay without assuming some underlying beliefs about 'the right way to value things.' For example when one person says women should have the right to choose an abortion while another says women shouldn't have that choice, each is valuing things differently - a valuation based on moral beliefs that are no scientifically based.
Reflecting on these realities Keller says:
While the New testament may not give believers direct calls to transform society, the gospel faith of Christians clearly had immediate and far-reaching impact on social and economic relationships, and not only strictly within the church.Keller finishes the chapter with some examples from proponents of transformationist and 2 kingdoms, showing that they are moving towards one another by recognising the blind spots within their models.
Chapter 17: Why all models are right... and wrong
What is the real issue? The trouble is that every model has rightly identified a real need and yet focusing on and addressing that need, often leads to the exclusion of or oversight of other 'needs' within the church that are then rightly identified by the other models. Keller suggest two questions about culture to help carve a way forward together:
1) Should we be pessimistic or optimistic about the possibility for cultural change?
2) Is the current culture redeemable and good, or fundamentally fallen?
Our answers to these questions reveal our alignments with biblical emphases as well as our imbalances.
On 1 he says:
This complex and rich understanding of cultural change throws a new light on each model. Each model has a tendency, especially among some of its more strident proponents, to be either too optimistic or too pessimistic about culture change. And within the groups that tend toward optimism, they tend to be too limited in their understanding of how culture can be changed. Some see the importance of arguing for truth claims, while others put more emphasis on the importance of communities and of historical processes - but any one of these can be the crucial factor in a culture shift. All of them can play a part and none of the current models give equal or adequate weight to them all.
How the various chapters of gospel shed light on our attitudes to culture:
Creation:
The material world is important. Unlike other ancient creation accounts and religions, Christianity enforces a 'saw that it was good' attitude on us toward the created world. If God is actively involved in the created world and if he both cultivates creation and saves souls with his truth - how can one say that an artist or banker is engaged in 'secular' work and that only professional ministers are doing 'the Lord's work'?
Adam and Eve are called to be fruitful, multiply and have dominion:
A gardener does not merely leave a plot of ground as it is but rearranges the raw material so it produces things necessary for human flourishing, whether food, other materials for goods, or simply beautiful foliage. Ultimately all human work and cultural activity represent this kind of gardening.Fall:
Sin infects and affects every part of life. Schaeffer comments:
We should be looking now, on the basis of the work of Christ, for substantial healing in every area affected by the fall... Man was divided from God, first; and then, ever since the fall, man is separated from himself. These are the psychological divisions... The next division is that man is divided from other men; these are the sociological divisions. And then man is divided from nature, and nature is divided from nature... One day, when Christ comes back, there is going to be a complete healing of all of them.The Bible presents us as both cursed and yet preserved by non-salvific grace. The battle line between God and idols not only runs through the world; it runs through the heart of every believer.
Cultural products should not be judged as 'good if Christians make them' and 'bad if non-Christians make them.' Each should be evaluated on its own merit as to whether it serves God or an idol.
Redemption and restoration:
Isaac Watts: 'He comes to make his blessings flow far as the curse is found.'
Grace does not do away with thinking and speaking, art and science, theatre and literature, business and economics; it remakes and restores what is amiss.
The kingdom of God is both now and not yet. Geerhardus Vos puts it well in The Teaching of Jesus Concerning the Kingdom of God and the Church:
The Kingdom of God means the renewal of the world through the introduction of supernatural forces.He states that the kingdom of God is:
1) the main way to see the kingdom forces of God at work is in the institutional church, whose main job is to minister through the Word and sacrament to win people and disciple them in Christ.
2) when Christians are living in society to God's glory, this, too is a manifestation of the kingdom of God.
We need this balance to stop it becoming purely a spiritual reality operating only in the church or mainly a social one operating in the liberation movements out in the world.The landscape of Christian cultural engagement
What do we learn from this brief survey? Balance. The word balance is thrust at us again.
There is then presented a great illustration picturing the various church streams against the others for where they emphasise cultural engagement / non engagement and common grace in society vs no common grace in society.
Chapter 18: Cultural Engagement Through Blended Insights
Given that we each have our own baggage (history, temperament, tradition and context) this chapter is about how to operate faithfully and skilfully within the model you inhabit.
Seek the Centre
Seek out and discern the various good bits of other models. He then lists the main 'good bits' of the other models:
Relevants: Since we're told seek the peace and prosperity of the city Christians should be known for serving the people whether those people embrace Christianity or not.
Transformationists: Good at discipling people in the world and not just taking people 'into the church' to train them as believers.
Counterculturalists: Rightly argue that the Christian witness is strongest within a redeemed corporate body called the church.
Two Kingdoms: Practical and useful insights into how excellent work within the world is a good form of Christian witness and pleasing to God.
The errors we must avoid: triumphalism or withdrawal, cultural compromise or cultural withdrawal.
For example:
The Two Kingdoms model rightly lifts up the dignity and divine significance of all work done by all people. Regardless of who is doing it, any work done with excellence and skill that serves other people and the common good should be appreciated and celebrated by Christians. However the Transformationist model points out the idolatries animating out lives, including our work and therefore values work done from a distinctly Christian understanding of human flourishing. To combine both of these attitudes enables Christians to be both humble and appreciative of non-believing colleagues and yet not satisfied with doing work according to the reigning standards and philosophies in their field.Miraslov Volf: Two noes and a yes.
No to dominating culture, no to accommodating to culture, yes to engaging with it.We can do one of the following with every aspect of culture:
1) adopt it and embrace it
2) transform it and redeem it
3) reject if altogether
The question is asked; should we then create a new model that sits in the middle of every error? Keller doesn't believe so for the reason that culture is never static and so the church will always need to be different depending on context and time. Keller then presents a 4 season cycle to church and culture:
Winter. Describes a church that is not only in a hostile relationship to a pre-Christian culture but is gaining little traction; is seeing little distinctive, vital Christian life and community; and is seeing no evangelistic fruit. In many cultures today, the church is embattled and spiritually weak.
Spring. Is a situation in which the church is embattled, even persecuted by a pre-Christian culture, but is is growing (e.g. as in China).
Summer. The church is highly regarded by the public and where we find so many Christians in the centres of cultural production that Christians feel at home in the culture.
Autumn. Where we find ourselves in the west today, becoming increasingly marginalised in a post-Christian culture and looking for new ways to both strengthen our distinctiveness and reach out winsomely.The second reason we cannot argue for a perfectly balanced model is because as well as there being cultural effects at work, there are also personal ones. Each model tends to attract people on the basis of their different ministry gifts and callings.
Paul has famously told us: while every Christian must have all of the fruits of Spirit no Christian has all of the gifts of the Spirit.So, how do we discern what spiritual gifts we have?
Evangelising is a duty of a Christian as is helping the poor but these are also gifts - some people are especially gifted to do evangelism, and others to show mercy to those in need. The problems that people often identify and bewail are usually a sign of their gifts and passions. People often need to be shown how their gift is giving them tunnel vision but also they need to be released to express and use their gift as much as they can.
Act, don't react:
I've become convinced that one of the reasons we have not seen more balanced cultural engagement 'near the centre' is that many of us are not choosing our Christ and culture model in the right way. Instead of looking at scripture, the culture and our own gifts and calling, we tend to form our views in visceral reactions to the behaviour of other Christians.Some practical exhortations on how to a void reacting to other groups in order define our own:
1. Avoid arrogance.
It is extremely easy to believe that the culture model that has helped you the most is the best one for everyone. It is especially easy to feel superior if you compare the strengths of your favourite model with the weaknesses of the others. Don't do that. Do not think that your particular tradition is 'the new thing God is doing' and all the others are fading away. A balanced assessment shows that none of the various traditions for engaging with culture are dying. Each has serious weaknesses but also great strengths.
2. Avoid blame.
If you have grown by adopting another culture model, you may feel angry or betrayed by the former one. You may have had good or bad personal experiences at the hands of cultural elites, which may have influenced you unduly. You may blame a certain model for all the trouble of the church because rabid proponents hurt the last congregation of which you were a member. Forgive, and look for places where you can repent. Try to remove the personal histories as you think about culture. Look at the Bible, the cultural moment and your gifts.
3. Avoid frustration.
If you are in a church of denomination that does not share the cultural model you feel is best, it can have a radicalising effect on you. Opposition can push you into more extreme forms of your position. Don't let conflict make you too rigid a proponent for your approach.
4. Avoid naïveté.
Some people say 'a plague on all your houses' and insist that one church transcend all models or incorporate them all. Because every church and Christian has history, a temperament, and a unique take on various theological issues, every church and Christian will be situated in some tradition and model. It is inescapable. The gospel should give us the humility both to appreciate other models and to acknowledged that we have a model of our own. So enjoy the strengths of your position, admit the weaknesses, and borrow like crazy from the strengths of the others.
MOVEMENT
Part 6: Missional Community
Chapter 19: The Search for the Missional Church
The word missional first became popular after the 1998 publication of the boot titled Missional Church. The word gets used in differing ways leading to confusion. Before its popularisation the word was used primarily in mainline Protestant and ecumenical circles, linked to the Latin phrase Missio Dei coined by Karl Barth referring to God's action in the world. After 1952 this action was more specifically used to refer to God's work to redeem the entire creation.
The shift went from:
Mission is about saving souls or as a way of expanding the church but... when we understand that God is 'on mission' meaning that the whole of God's nature as Trinity is already on mission, then the church simply joins him on it. The Father sends the Son, the Father and the Son send the Spirit and the Spirit sends the church. Mission isn't a dept. of the church but concerns everything she does.
Seen in that way 'mission' becomes something that ought to be seen in the doctrine of the Trinity, not ecclesiology or soteriology.
God does not send the church on mission. God is on mission and the church joins him.
Newbigin saw this theology, although sound in doctrine, gave rise to form of liberalism that left the church with little relevance. People began to emphasise God the Father's activity in the world to bring peace and hope and justice and our Spirit-empowered mandate to help governing bodies and secular organisations achieve their goals. This way of thinking left little room for the Son's mission to seek and save lost souls. He insisted:
The church needed to grow through evangelism yet be involved in service and in the struggle for justice in the world as well.The story of Leslie Newbigin: a lengthy quote!
Leslie Newbigin had been a British missionary in India for several decades. When he returned to England in the mid-1970s, he saw the massive decline of the church and Christian influence that had occurred in his absence. At the time he left England, Western society's main cultural institutions still Christianised people, and the churches were easily gathering those who came to their doors through social expectation and custom. Churches in the West had always supported 'missions' in overseas non-Christian cultures (such as India). There on the 'mission field' churches functioned in a different way that they did in Europe and North America. Churches in India did not merely support missions or even do missions - they were missional in every aspect. They could not simply process Christianised people as churches did in the West. Rather, every aspect of their church life - worship preaching, community life and discipleship - had to be a form of mission.
For example on the mission field, visitors to a worship service could not be expected to have nay familiarity with Christianity. therefore the worship and preaching had to address them in ways both comprehensible and challenging. On the mission field, believers lived in a society with radically different values from those they were taught in church. This made 'life in the world' very complicated for Christians. Discipleship and training had to equip believers to answer many hostile questions from their neighbours. It also had to spell out Christian personal and corporate behaviour patterns that distinguished them and showed society what the kingdom of God was all about. In other words, away from the West, churches did not simply have a missions department; Christians were 'in mission' in every aspect of their public and private lives.
When he returned to England, Newbigin discover that the ground had shifted. the cultural institutions of society were now indifferent or overtly hostile to Christian faith, and the number of people who went to church had plummeted. Western culture was fast becoming a non-Christian society - a 'mission field - but the church were making little adjustment. While many Christian leaders were bemoaning the cultural changes, Western churches continued to minister as before - creating an environment in which only traditional and conservative people would feel comfortable. they continued to disciple people by focusing on individual skills for their private lives (Bible study and prayer) but failed to train them to live distinctively Christian lives in a secular world - in the public arenas of politics, art, and business. All they preached and practiced assumed they were still in the Christian West, but the Christian West was vanishing.
Newbigin rejected the view that the West was becoming a secular society without God, instead seeing that it had become a pagan one, a society filled with idols and false gods.
He then went on to argue that the church, far from being irrelevant ought to be:
'a hermeneutic of the gospel'Ingredients for a missionary encounter:
- a new apologetic (that takes on the so-called neutrality of secular reason)
- the teaching of the kingdom of God (that God wants not only to save souls but heal the whole creation)
- earning the right to be heard through willingness to serve sacrificially
- equipping the laity to bring the implications of their faith into their public calling and so transform culture
- a countercultural church community
- a unified church that shows the world and overcoming of denominational divisions
- a global church in which the older Wetsern churches listen to the non-Western churches
- courage
The (literally) crucial matter is the centrality of Jesus and his atoning work on the cross, that work by which he has won lordship over the church and the world...
It is one of the most pressing tasks for the immediate future to rediscover a doctrine of redemption that sees the cross not as the banner of the oppressed against the oppressor but as the action of God that brings both judgement and redemption for all who will accept it, yet does not subvert the proper struggle for the measure of justice that is possible in a world of sinful human beings.David Bosch in his book Transforming Mission explains how we might be able to alert people to the universal reign of God:
- We must avoid the two opposing errors of trying to re-create a Christian society (medieval Christendom's mistake) on the hand and on the other the mistake of withdrawal from society into the 'spiritual realm' (the error of modernity).
- We must learn how to publicly and prophectically challenge the idol of autonomous reason and its results.
- We must take pains to make our churches into contrast societies, countercultures that show society what human life looks like free from the idols of race, wealth, sex, power and individual autonomy.
- We must model to the world as much unity between churches as is practically possible.
What changed?
The death of Christendom came about many assume as a result of eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinking working its way through society. Ross Douthat in his book 'Bad Religion' offers other ideas suggesting that after World War II there were 5 major contributing factors that brought about the change we now live in:
- political polarisation between left and right which took many churches captive (mainline Protestants toward the left, evangelicals toward the right) and weakened credibility.
- the sexual revolution and the birth control pill that fueled it.
- the dawn of globalisation and the impression that Christianity was imperialistically Western.
- the enormous growth in the kind of material prosperity that always works against faith.
- the loss of the elites and academic cultural institutions they control (see ch. 2)
The two approaches: 'history-of-thought' (Newbigin's approach) and the 'sociology-of-knowledge' (Douthat's approach) both offer valuable insights.
Another strain of thought would be to analyse the church's fault: the church becomes weak and even corrupt when it becomes successful in a culture.
Missional muddle, decluttered. Keller then lists the four different ways churches have sought to understand and 'redefine' missional: 1. evangelism 2. incarnational 3. contextual 4. communal and reciprocal.
Sin redefined:
in order to overcome the Enlightenment's individualism, the church must redefine sin, mission and salvation in corporate and communal terms. Rather than speaking of sin primarily as an offence against a holy God, sin is seen, in horizontal terms, as the violation of God's shalom in the world through selfishness, violence, injustice and pride.
Rather than speaking of the cross as primarily the place where Jesus satisfied the wrath of God on our sin, Jesus' death is seen as the occasion when the powers of this world fell on Jesus and were defeated.
The post-Christian age:
'in a previous age the church allowed the culture to do a lot of its heavy lifting infusing people with a broadly Christian way of thinking about things - respect for the Bible, allegiance to the 10 C, commitment to the ethical teachings of the Gospels; belief in a personal God, an afterlife, a judgment day, and moral absolutes.'
The times have changed.
To the self-absorbed culture we say, "You must lose yourself - in service to Christ and others - to truly find yourself." To the rationalistic culture we say, "You cannot have the things you want - meaning, dignity, hope, character, shared values and community - without faith."
sent out to be a blessing.
A Christian is not a spiritual consumer, coming in to get his or her emotional needs met and then going home. A missional church, then, is one that trains and encourages its people to be in mission as individuals and as a body.
In Christendom, you could afford to train people solely in prayer, Bible study, and evangelism because they were not facing radically non-Christian values in their public lives. Now, all people need to theological education to 'think Christianly' about everything and to act with Christian distinctiveness.
A contrast community.
Rather than defining ourselves in contrast to other churches Keller suggests that it is more useful to define ourselves in relationship to the values of the secular culture. Our 'bent' should be in the direction of support and cooperation with other churches in the local area.
Chapter 20: Centering the Missional Church
Observing potential problems within the conversation over missional church:
Problem 1: Not comprehensive enough
We must be evangelistic however, the typical evangelical gospel presentation is too shallow.
It speaks cursorily about a God whom we have sinned against, a saviour who died for our sins, and a call to believe in this saviour. The simplicity of this communication presumes that those listening share the same essential understanding of the words God and sin as the speaker.
But what if a growing majority of people outside the church live by such a radically different view of life that much of what is now said and done by the Christian community is inexplicable or even deeply offensive to them? What if many listeners hold a profoundly different understanding of the concepts of God, truth, right and wrong, freedom, virtue, and sin? What if their approaches to reality, human nature and destiny and human community are wholly different from our own?This next bit really needs to be read twice. What we're facing isn't new. It shows me that evangelism among the sorts of people mentioned above may well take a long time. There is less shared perceptions than ever before:
For decades this has been the situation facing Christian churches in many areas around the world - places such as India, Iran and Japan. Evangelism in these environments involves a lengthy process in which nonbelievers have to be invited into a Christian community that bridges the gap between Christian truth and the culture around it. Every part of a church's life - its worship, community, public discourse, preaching and education - has to assume the presence of nonbelievers from surrounding culture.Problem 2: Too tied to a particular form
Many people writing about missional church insist that missional = incarnational which = non-Sunday centric, oikos approach of relationships and deeply embedded in the community.
Keller pastored a small church in a working-class town for 10 years. He recognises that both attractional (large) and incarnational (small and house based) have their value:
In final analysis, I don't believe any single form of church (small or large, cell group based or midsize community based) is intrinsically better at growing spiritual fruit, reaching nonbelievers, caring for people, and producing Christ-shaped lives.Problem 3: Loss of a clear understanding of the gospel
In restating the gospel many have redefined it. Many missional churches emphasis the horizontal (relational/communal) aspects of sin but at the denial and detriment of the vertical (it offends God) level.
The marks of a missional church
1. It confront the society's idols.
2. It realises that most of our more recently formulated and popular gospel presentations will fall on deaf ears.
3. It affirms 'every member missionary'
4. It understands itself as a servant community - a counterculture for the common good
5. It should expect nonbelievers to be involved in most aspects of the church's life and ministry
6. It should practise Christian unity on the local level as much as possible
These six marks of a missional church can exist in both large and small churches of various forms and are strengthened, not weakened, by a clear grasp of the understanding of the gospel that was recaptured by the Protestant Reformers.A missional church must equip its members to do three things: 1) to be a verbal witness to the gospel in their webs of relationships. 2) to love their neighbours and do justice within their neighbourhoods and city, 3) to integrate their faith with their work in order to engage culture through their vocations.
Church quote:
A sacrificial service church will show the world, then, a 'third way' between the individualistic self-absorption that secularism can breed and the tribal self-righteousness that religion can breed.Good definition of a Christian living contextually: culturally like yet spiritually unlike the people in the surrounding neighbourhood and culture.
Chapter 21: Equipping People for Missional Living
It is the responsibility of the ordained leadership to build up the church and its members through the ministry of the Word and sacraments. However, one critical focus of that ministry must now be the discipling of the laity for ministry in the world.
John Stott: There has always been a strong tendency for Christians to withdraw into a kind of closed, evangelical, monastic community.
In the book of Acts not only the apostles (5:42) but every Christian (8:4) did evangelism - and they did so endlessly. Every Christian was expected to evangelise, follow up, nurture, and teach people the Word. This happened relationally - one person bringing the gospel to another within the context of a relationship.
Michael Green: early Christianity's explosive growth 'was in reality accomplished by means of informal missionaries... in homes and wine shops, on walks, and around market stalls... they did it naturally.
Not all evangelism was informal however. There were also many forms of evangelism in the early church that required great training and expertise, including synagogue preaching and open-air preaching, as well as public teaching and 'dialogical' evangelism.
'Dialogical' is most likely a form of interactive dialogue with all comers about the Christian faith in the model of Paul who in the hall of Tyrannus daily for two years he discussed the faith with people (A19).
Evangelism however, started and took most root, at home:
A person's strongest relationships were within the household - with blood relatives, servants, clients and friends - so when a person became a Christian, it was in the household that he or she would get the most serious hearing. If the head of the household became a believer, the entire home became a ministry centre in which the gospel was taught to all the household's members and neighbours.We see this in Acts 16 (Lydia's and the jailer's homes in Philippi), Acts 17 (Jason's home in Thessalonica), Acts 18 (Titius Justus's home in Corinth), Acts 21 (Philip's home in Caesarea) and 1 Corinthians (Stephanas's home in Corinth).
He also points out how many of the significant early church fathers became believers through a friend leading them to Christ.
Keller then gives lots of practical examples of what modern day gospelising could look like in the course of friendship. Really good material for helping people think practically about evangelism.
In all the examples the basic form of the gospel ministry is the same:
- Organic. It happens spontaneously, outside of the church's organised programs (even though it occasionally makes use of formal programs).
- Relational. It is done in the context of informal personal relationships.
- Word deploying. It prayerfully brings the Bible and gospel into connection with people's lives.
- Active, not passive. Each person assumes personal responsibility for being a producer rather than just a consumer of ministry.
Keller:
My experience has been that when at least 20-25% of a church's people are engaged in this kind of organic, relational gospel ministry, it creates a powerful dynamism that infuses the whole church and greatly extends the church's ability to edify and evangelise.Many people process from unbelief to faith through 'mini-decisions'.
In a 'post-Christendom' setting, more often than not, this is the case. People simply do not have the necessary background knowledge to hear a gospel address and immediately understand who God is, what sin is, who Jesus is, and what repentance and faith are in a way that enables them to make an intelligent commitment.The process of someone becoming a believer in this way often looks like this:
- Awareness. I see it. They begin to clear the ground of stereotypes and learn to distinguish the gospel from legalism or liberalism. Mini decisions look like this: 'she's religious but surprisingly open-minded'... 'a lot of things the Bible says really fit me.'
- Relevance. I need it. They begin to see the personal slavery that religion and irreligion bring and see how the gospel transforms. Mini decisions here looks like: 'an awful lot of very normal people really like this church!'... 'Jesus seems to be the key. I wonder who he was.'
- Credibility. I need it because it's true. Mini decisions here look like 'you really can't use science to disprove the supernatural'... 'there really were eyewitnesses to the resurrection.'
- Trial. I see what it would be like. They start talking like a Christian, even defending the faith at time.
- Commitment. I take it. Conversion or a realisation that they have become converted already. Mini decisions here: 'I am a sinner.'... 'I need a saviour.'
- Reinforcement. Now I get it. The penny drops and the gospel becomes even clearer and more real.
Fire needs air, heat and fuel and so it is that there is a type of environment that is most helpful and conducive for new life to occur: Believers with relational integrity, pastoral support, safe venues.
Relational Integrity:
Christians must be contextualised 'letters of the gospel'. They must be like their neighbours in the food they eat, clothes they wear, dialect, general appearance, work life, recreational and cultural activities and civic engagement. They participate fully in life with their neighbours. At first glance Christians should look reassuringly similar to others. They must provide a picture to an unbeliever of what they could look like if they became a believer; a financial worker meets a Christian in the same business, an artist similar. But Christians must also be unlike their neighbours. Integrity and honesty, transparency and fair, generosity
If employers, they should take less personal profit so customers and employees have more pay.Additionally they should be engaged with others.
As citizens, they should be philanthropic and generous with their time and with the money they donate for the needy.
Believers should be known for their hospitality, welcoming others into their homes, especially neighbours and people with needs. Marked by sympathy and a willingness to forgive.
Part of being engaged is to be willing to identify as a believer. Engaging relational without doing so could be called 'the blend-in approach.' Many Christians live in a social world of non-Christians but don't think much about their friends' spiritual needs, nor do they identify themselves as believers to their friends. Their basic drive is to be accepted, avoid being perceived as different - but this approach fails to integrate a person's faith with his or her relationships in the world.These three factors - like, unlike, engaged - make up the foundation of being a Christian with relational integrity.
Why is there so little relational integrity among believers? Keller suggests that the answer is motivational:
People who are in the blend-in mode often lack courage. They are (rightly) concerned about losing influence, being persecuted in behind-the-scenes ways, or bing penalised professionally.
Those in the bubble mode are unwilling to make the emotional, social, or even financial and physical investment in the people around them.
The second necessary factor in personal evangelism:
Pastoral support
Pastors need to support their church in this mission by modelling how to talk to people about faith issues and how to pray for them.
The gospel also keeps us from being tied to our reputation and so frees us from the fear that stops us sharing our faith.
Keller:
I believe the single most important way for pastors or church leaders to turn passive congregation members into courageous and gracious members is through their own evident godliness.And then this, which I love:
A pastor should be marked by humility, love, joy and wisdom that is visible and attracts people to trust and learn from them. As a pastor, you may not be the best preacher, but if you are filled with God's love, joy and wisdom, you won't be boring! You may not be the most skilful organiser or charismatic leader, but if your holiness is evident, people will follow you. This means, at the very least, that a dynamic, disciplined, and rich prayer life is not only important in the abstract and personal sense; it may be the most practical thing you can do for your ministry.Safe Venues
Putting on meetings or gatherings in which nonbelievers are exposed more directly to both Christians and to the gospel. Avoid confusing newcomers and offending them. Using your ingenuity try to image a variety of meetings and places where people without faith can, through a winsome approach be stimulated to consider the claims of the Christian gospel. Some examples...
- A one-off event, such as an open forum. At Redeemer these have been artistic forums followed by a lecture that offers a Christian perspective on the art, with a time for questions and answers.
- A gathering in a small public venue with a brief talk and Q&A on a single topic that address problems people have with Christian faith. Redeemer call these 'Christianity Uncorked' events.
- A small group that is beginning to form is like 'wet cement' and is therefore easier for a person to get drawn into it.
- A worship service comprehensible to nonbelievers.
- A small group for listening to other non-Christian people talk about their faith.
- A non-Christian book club.
- Onetime 'salons' in which Christians bring friends to hear an informal presentation by a Christian speaker on a topic, followed by a discussion.
- Worship 'after meetings' including a Q&A session with the preacher.
- Affinity based outreach (men's and women's gatherings).
Evangelism should be natural and not dictated by a set of bullet points and agenda items that we enter into a conversation hoping to cover.
Part 7 : Integrative Ministry
Chapter 22: The Balance of Ministry Fronts
Integrated ministry is to the be the goal we pursue. Evangelism needn't be chosen over discipleship just as teaching needn't be chosen over practical ministry to address people's needs. Because of the gospel:
the church should disciple its people to seek personal conversion, deep Christian community, social justice, and cultural renewal in the city. These ministry areas should not be seen as independent or optional but as interdependent and fully biblical.These traits need to be held together and can be held together by a thorough conviction that the gospel promotes and not just permits, all of them.
Many churches are committed to the poor and issues of social justice. Still others make much of the importance of culture and the arts. But seldom are these traits combined:
Indeed it is normal to find leaders of these various ministries resisting or even resenting the other ministry emphases. Those working with the poor think 'integrating faith and work' is elitist. those stressing community, discipleship, and holiness often think that emphasising church growth produces spiritual shallowness.Unless we try to do all of them we won't actually do any of them very well.
The metaphors of the church. Edmund Clowney points out that there are literally dozens of them. He lists 81 of them:
- chosen people
- holy nation
- family
- body of Christ
- bride of Christ
- royal priesthood
- holy temple
- spiritual house
- God's field
- his harvest
- olive tree
- branches on a vine
Each of them give insights into the nature of the church. All of them must inform our practice of church life. Clowney points out how some metaphors of the church have come to dominate and push out others creating models of church. Clowney lists 5 different models based on emphasising one aspect of the church above the others.
- The church as an institution model emphasises doctrine, theology and ordained ministerial authority.
- The church as mystical communion points to the church as organic community and fellowship.
- The church as sacrament accents corporate worship.
- The church as herald preeminently does evangelism and preaching.
- The church as servant is a radical community committed to social justice.
Just as no one Christian has all the spiritual gifts so it is that no one church can fulfil all the callings upon the church equally well. Keller sums up the different aspects of the church in four ministry fronts:
- Connecting people to God (through evangelism and worship)
- Connecting people to one another (through community and discipleship)
- Connecting people to the city (through mercy and justice)
- Connecting people to the culture (through the integration of faith and work)
Clowney speaks of the 'goals of ministry' as being: serve God, serve one another, serve the world.
We are not called to be specialists, only doing one and not the others for example.
The two fronts: worship/evangelism and community/discipleship are preeminently the work of the institutional church. Individuals and parachurch organisations have been useful for this but the 'irreplaceable agent for this ministry is the local church.'
The third (serving the city) has an overlap from institutional to organic but is done by the members out in the community.
The fourth front. The institutional equips the organic to go and do and be in the culture. But how?
By teaching the Christian doctrine of vocation, the goodness of creation, the importance of culture, and the practice of Sabbath, it should be inspiring and encouraging its members, for example, to be distinctively Christian in their art and work through solid Christian instruction. But in the end, I believe the local church should not form a production company to make feature films.
Chapter 23: Connecting People to God
Keller offers an explanation for his preferred style of worship services but recognises the cultural and personality dynamics involved in 'designing' a worship service. Helpful table that outlines the various historic, contemporary and 'convergence' approaches to worship. He lists where the typical style of service fits within denominational lines but also helpfully outlines what is 'central' in each of the services:
The Normative perspective: The Bible and the past. Tradition is valuable because it connects us to the saints and the church of the past, relying on the tested wisdom of the generations.
The Situational Perspective: Calvin recognised that a worship service isn't to be shaped only by theological and historical considerations. He often said that 'whatever edifies' should be done; that that is the golden rule in worship: 'If we let love be our guide, all will be safe.'
Cultural context shapes the service. Observations from NYC:
A worship service can be both evangelistically effective and also edify and educate Christians. Keller's conviction is that we achieve this by aiming not at either of those goals but instead focus on being gospel centred.
Evangelistic worship: 1 Cor 14 promotes the idea that prophecy should be prized above tongues since he leads to evangelism. Acts 2 at Pentecost, the Spirit's activity leads to gospel interest and then salvation.
We can conclude then:
1. Nonbelievers are expected to be present in Christian worship.
2. Nonbelievers should find the praise of Christians to be comprehensible:
2. Get nonbelievers into a worship service:
You can do this in the service or after. In Redeemer they use the Lord's Supper and state it like this:
Chapter 24: Connecting people to one another
The gospel creates community. Therefore, or accordingly, it follows that the chief way we should disciple people (or if you prefer to form them spiritually) is through community. Growth in grace, wisdom and character does not happen primarily in classes and instruction, through large gatherings, or even in solitude. Most often growth happens through deep relationships and in communities where the implications of the gospel are worked our cognitively and worked in practically.
Community and our character
In the teacher/student relationship they connect primarily on the level of intellect. This isn't how Jesus connected with his followers. Instead he created a community of learning and practice in which there was plenty of time to work out truth in discussion, dialogue, and application. This example suggests that we best learn and apply what we are learning in small groups and among friends, not in academic settings alone.
Our character is mainly shaped by our primary social community - the people with whom we eat, play, converse, counsel, and study.
Community and our behaviour
Far mroe of the biblical ethical prescriptions are addressed to us as a community than as individuals. The 10Cs were given to Israel that they might be an alternate community. Most of the ethical principles or rules in the Bible are not simply codes of behaviour for individuals to follow; they are descriptions of a new community that bears the spiritual fruit of love and holiness.
The battle against sinful habits and idolatrous affections is best worked out in community.
Community and growing to know God better
It's through interacting with others that we see different aspects of God's dealing with them and us so grow to know him more too as a result.
...
Comment on midweek community and Sundays. Keller makes clear the challenges of building community in a city environment and concludes it by stating:
Christians community is perhaps the main way that we bear witness to the world, form Christlike character, practice a distinctively Christian style of life, and know God personally.
...
A form of spiritual growth that isn't purely corporate (as in the medieval and pre-modern churches) or purely individualistic (as in the over emphasis on isolated spiritual experiences and disciplines).
In 'The Grounded Gospel' Gary Parrett and J. I. Packer urge contemporary Christians to recover catechetical instruction to the life of the church. They argue for a form of discipleship that includes three ancient and biblical summaries:
When considering how people grow Keller says:
1) Recognise that seekers need process.
He sites the shift from mid twentieth century 'crusades' and rallies to Alpha course style processes as the church recognised the need to help people from a more pagan background learn about Christianity.
Personal identity and sin
Our natural condition makes us 'glory empty' - starved for significance and honour and a sense of worth. sin make us feel superior and overconfident (because at a deep level we feel guilty and insecure). Some people's glory emptiness primarily takes the form of bravado and evident pride; for others, it takes the form of self-deprecation and self-loathing. Most of us are wracked by both impulses. Either way, until the gospel changes us, we will use people in relationships. We do not work for the sake of the work; we do not relate for the sake of the person. Rather, we work and relate to bolster our own self-image - to derive it, essentially from others.
The gospel makes us neither self-confident nor self-disdaining but gives us boldness and humility that can increase together.
Community:
Strong community is formed by powerful common experiences, as when people survive a flood or fight together in a battle. When they emerge on the other side, this shared experience becomes the basis for a deep, permanent bond that is stronger than blood. The more intense the experience the more intense the bond. When we experience Christ's radical grace through repentance and faith, it becomes the most intense, foundational event of our lives.
We often think of community as simply one more thing we have to follow in the rules of behaviour. "Ok, I have to read my Bible, pray, stay sexually pure - and I need to go to fellowship." But the community is best understood as the way we are ot do all that Christ told us to do in the world. Community is more than just the result of the preaching of the gospel; it is itself a declaration and expression of the gospel.
Chapter 25: Connecting People to the City
Biblical foundations for ministries of mercy and justice
1. Christians are to love their neighbour. (in OT they were commanded to recognise the poor, immigrant and single-parent families as neighbours), in the NT Jesus' parable of Good Samaritan reemphasises the idea of the needy being our neighbours. God is a God of justice and anyone who has a relationship with him will be concerned about justice as well.
2. Christians are called to serve. The Christian pattern of greatness takes its lead from Jesus are declared 'I am among you as one who serves.'
3. Christians are instructed to 'do justice' or 'live justly.' OT scholar says 'the righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community; the wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.'
Practical approaches for ministries of mercy and justice
Once we answer the question of 'why' the church should participate in ministries of mercy and justice, we must still address the question of 'how' it will do so. How...
1. Relief. Giving direct aid to meet physical, material and social needs. Good though this is, when not combined with other types of assistance, it will invariably create patterns of dependency.
2. Development. Bringing a person or community to self-sufficiency. Individually this may look like education, job-training/creation. For a neighbourhood or community it means social and financial being reinvested into a system - housing development, home ownership etc.
3. Reform. Social reform moves beyond the relief of immediate needs and seeks to change the social conditions that caused the problem.
How should the local church participate? Keller suggests:
1. Level of priority: How much should we help? Given how expensive this ministry can be, how much of a priority should be it? Consider the distinction made in Acts 6 where deacons were appointed to give concerted focus to the serving of needs within their church. Someone in your church should be set apart to meet material and felt needs through deeds.
2. Defining 'the poor': Whom should we help?
3. Conditional or unrestricted: When, and under what conditions, do we help? Galatians 6:10 is a good guiding principle here 'let us do good to all, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.'
4. Relief, development, and reform: In what way do we help? Should the church get into politics or stick with feeding the hungry?
Consider Emperor Julian's objection to the 'impious Galileans' who support 'not only their own poor but ours as well,'
Chapter 26: Connecting people to the Culture
In the West during the time of Christendom, the church could afford to limit its discipleship and training of believers to prayer, Bible study and evangelism because most Christians were not facing non-Christian values at work, in their neighbourhoods, or at school:
We must help people see how the gospel shapes our work in at least four ways:
1. Our faith changes our motivation for work. We work for him under his watchful eye.
2. Our faith changes our conception of work. Simple tasks such as making a shoe or digging a ditch are ways to serve God and build up human community.
3. Our faith provides high ethics for Christians in the workplace.
4. Our faith gives us the basis for reconceiving the very way in which our kind of work is done. Every society has a map of what jobs are most important. With the gospel at the centre of our worldview our idols come down and we value things more accurately.
The worldview behind your work:
Are you helping people think about the worldviews behind their work? Encourage them to ask questions like these:
1. What worldviews are predominant in my profession?
2. What are the underlying assumptions about meaning, morality, origin, and destiny?
3. What are the chief fears or threats? What groups or ideas are seen as the enemy?
4. What are the idols? What are the hopes?
5. What is the story line of the culture in which I live?
6. How do those worldviews affect both the form and content of my work? How can I work not just with excellence but with Christian distinctiveness?
7. Which parts of the culture's dominant views/theories are basically in line with the gospel and make it possible for me to agree with and use them?
8. Which parts of the dominant views/theories are basically irresolvable without Christ? How can Christ finish the story? In other words, where must I challenge my culture?
9. What opportunities are there in my profession for serving people, serving society as a whole and witnessing to Christ and the kingdom of God?
The church ought to help people work in three specific ways: accountably, distinctively and excellently.
Accountably. We need to provide wha Keller calls 'the most basic means of grace': prayer, mutual accountability, community and shepherding oversight to everyone regardless of work - life balance. Reflect on these questions: Should some groups meet only monthly face-to-face but weekly online? Should some church staff be released to do more frequent one-on-three shepherding and discipleship?
At Redeemer they have 'vocational fellowships' made up of Christians in the same vocation who band together to minister to one another in the ways mentioned above.
Distinctively: Worldview development and training. The question for the church is this: If we believe that Jesus is Lord in every area of life, how do we train our people in the practice of that lordship? This requires some older accomplished Christians in a field, younger arriving Christians in a field and teachers knowledgable in the Bible, theology and church history.
Excellently: Mentoring and cultural production. Discipleship and entreprenuership within the workplace. At Redeemer they have an annual 'Dragon's Den' type thing for profit and non-profit ventures. In these competitions those who present plans must show how the gospel informs the integration of their faith and work.
Part 8: Movement Dynamics
Chapter 27: Movements and Institutions
Keller starts by describing the problem created by pioneering missions of the 19th C. Too often these missions created dependant churches unable to reproduce themselves since they were dependant upon the missions organisation/denomination to provide them with money and leaders. A different approach pioneered by the likes of Hudson Taylor sought to create independent churches able to reproduce themselves from inception. Hudson Taylor and the like:
Movements and institutions. It is not the case that movements are good and institutions are bad. Organisations should have both institutional characteristics and movement dynamics. Institutionalising things helps. Keller uses the example of buying groceries. There are institutionalised ways of buying groceries that shops change at their peril. For organisations institutionalising can be a useful when it preserves an established authority that preserves values from the past. Institutions bring order to life and establish many of the conditions for human flourishing.
Movements however have more to do with the assertion of individual preference and bringing forth the realities of the future.
Four key characteristics of movements would be:
2. Sacrificial commitment due to shared vision. In the early days of any movement the main actors often work without compensation, constantly living in the threat of bankruptcy. There is no more practical index of whether your church has movement dynamics than examining whether you have a culture of sacrifice. If top leaders of the church are the only ones making all the sacrifices, then you don't have a movement culture.
3. Generous flexibility toward other organisations and people outside their own membership.
4. They spontaneously produce new ideas and leaders from within. Institutions tend to reward leadership according to tenure and the accrual of accepted qualifications and credentials whereas movements take risks and hire/reward based on results.
David Hurst a Harvard scholar sums up how movements become institutions:
Chapter 28: The Church as an organised organism
As much as we clarify the differences between movements and institutions, Kellers says, we must recognise that:
The biblical language implies that there is an organic, self-propagating, dynamic power operating within the church - the word of God bearing fruit all on its own with little institutional support. And yet whenever Paul sees a church started he very quickly appoints leaders to cultivate it and emoby the church's apostolically inherited teaching and purpose.
From the beginning the church was both institution and movement. The dual nature of the church is grounded in the work of the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who makes the church simultaneously a vital organism and a structures organisation.
Jesus: the General and special office
He was prophet (since he preached and embodied God's word and character) but also priest:
1. Every believer is a prophet. Christians are called to witness to the truth before non believing friends and neighbours and also to admonish believers with the word of Christ. The assumption is that word of Christ is dwelling in us richly.
2. The Bible calls every believer a priest. We are to daily offer ourselves as living sacrifices but also 'do good and share with others' (H13:16)
3. Every believer is a King. We rule and reign with Christ (Eph. 2:6). We are to confess our sins to one another, not just an elder, we are called to minister to each other, to pray for one another. The kingly authority in each believer also means that each one of us has been empowered and called to defeat the world, flesh and devil.
The Spirit-equipped calling of every believer to be a prophet, priest and king has been called the 'general office' we each occupy.
The Spirit gives every Christian believer spiritual gifts for ministry to ensure the church remains able to produce innovation and life from 'grassroots'. For these gifts to best be utilised within the church requires some level of governance and organisation or structure.
Movement dynamics within the local church
A compellingly articulated church vision is in reality a contextualised way of expressing the biblical teaching about the gospel and the work of the church.
Selfless devotion is not something that leaders can create (apart from emotional manipulation). Only leaders who have the vision and devotion can kindle this sacrificial spirit in others.
Movement-oriented churches think more about reaching the city, while institutionalised churches put emphasis on growing their church's particular expression or denomination.
Movement dynamics are often created by social and external factors. One writer points out that it is in settings where the church has been marginalised and Christians rejected (even though there may not be any overt persecution), that they also become the most active missionally. Think about how the Jews and gays, a small minority in society have gained such a loud voice and been so missionally active.
It isn't a size thing: Experience has shown that churches and ministries of all sizes can have an institutionalised form or can exhibit movement dynamics.
Spontaneity without top-down command enables growth.
Organising for movement dynamics:
This renewal must happen frequently in any church for it to remain an organised organism.
Church Planting as a movement dynamic
A church that is an organised organism will exhibit movement dynamics not only inside but also beyond itself.
1) They evangelised (or 'gospeled') the city. To 'gospel' is to do a great deal more than preach sermons. Paul preached in synagogues, shared in small group Bible studies, spoke in marketplaces, lead discussions in rented halls, and spoke to people one-to-one.
2) Incorporation into community. New believers were 'congregated' into a community that assembles regularly.
3) Leadership development. In each place Paul appointed a plurality of elders who took on the task of teaching and shepherding the people in the faith.
When Paul began meeting with them (the converts) they were called 'disciples' (A14:22) but when he left them they were known as 'churches' (A14:23).
We should work to make church planting natural.
1. Be willing to give away resources and lose control of your money, members and leaders.
2. Be willing to give up some control of the shape of the ministry itself.
3. Be willing to care for the kingdom even more than for your tribe.
Ultimately though we don't look to Paul to teach us about church planting, we look to Jesus.
Objections:
But we have churches now. We should renew existing ones rather than plant new ones!
We need fully-evangelistic churches rather than evangelistic events. Experience teaches that many of the people who make 'decisions' for Christ at one off events, don't result in changed lives. Why?
The 1% Rule:
Lyle Schaller talks about the 1% rule: 'Each year any association of churches should plant new congregations at the rate of 1% of their existing total; otherwise, that association is in maintenance and decline. If an association wants to grow 50% plus in a generation, it must plant 2-3% per year.
How many churches does the city need? Answer: Far more than you think.
Because of the institutionalised pull on churches it is inevitable that some in a city are enduring because of being continually revitalised, some lose flexibility, some stagnate and some die - each year.
LEARN - about people in your community, seek to know them, what their fears and hoeps are. Interview and read sociological reports on them. Create a profile of the religious bodies int eh area. How is the church doing? How is it organised?
LOVE - grow in your love for God by learning to maintain healthy spirituality. Cultivate good gospel habits. Begin to share the gospel and spiritually direct people in your neighbourhood and community. Model the gospel through community service and in your family life. Experience the gospel in deep community as you develop friendships.
LINK - Embody the gospel and show how it connects with the people you're wanting to reach. What will make the people in your neighbourhood glad that you're there? Connect with individuals and community leaders and begin to meet the perceived needs of the community.
LAUNCH - Develop action steps and goals that be used as benchmarks to track progress. Reality will always alter your plan, but the planning process will equip you to deal with surprises and new realities in a way that is informed by and consistent with your model and vision. Include these basics: goals for funding and how tot reach them. Goals for concrete ministries and how to reach them. Goals for leadership development and how to reach them.
The effectiveness of plants
It takes more than one type of church to reach a city.
Unity is not simply the work of the Spirit but the very instrument through which the Spirit works. This is why it is vital to maintain the unity of the Spirit.
Because of this belief:
Referring again to the metaphor of gardening Keller points out that we cannot produce a movement on our own:
In working well with others Keller gives a list of 'how to do polemics' (acknowledge and challenge differences). He stresses the need to represent others fairly, not attribute beliefs to them that they don't hold, represent their opinion in its strongest form and seek to persuade rather than antagonise. He quote Calvin on a good point about popularity:
First ring: Contextualised Theological Vision
Second ring: Church planting and church renewal movements
Third ring: Specialised ministries
Tipping points that led to change:
In sociological terms neighbourhoods stay largely the same if the new types of residents comprise less than 5% of the population. When the number of new residents reaches somewhere between5-25% the whole neighbourhood shifts and undergoes rapid and significant change.
Epilogue: Late Modernity and the Center Church
The root idea of modernity was the overturning of all authority outside the self. Until then and for a long while until that root idea took effect people were able to root their identities to a large degree in their family and their nation: Yet today, even these institutions are eroding, worn away by the 'acid' of the modern principle that individual happiness and autonomy must come before anything else.
We're not so much 'post' modern as we are 'late' modern: The main principles of modernity, the autonomy of the individual, and personal freedom over the claims of tradition, religion, family and community, is what we have today - intensified.
Effective ministry:
'Palm Monday'
Keller offers an explanation for his preferred style of worship services but recognises the cultural and personality dynamics involved in 'designing' a worship service. Helpful table that outlines the various historic, contemporary and 'convergence' approaches to worship. He lists where the typical style of service fits within denominational lines but also helpfully outlines what is 'central' in each of the services:
Guiding principles for connecting people to God:
Historic liturgical - emphasis on the physical - eucharist is central
Historic traditional - emphasis on the mental - sermon is central
Contemporary praise and worship - emphasis on the emotional - praise music is central
Seeker-oriented worship - emphasis on the practical - theme is central
Convergence fusions of both Form & Music - emphasis on the mystical - story is central
The Normative perspective: The Bible and the past. Tradition is valuable because it connects us to the saints and the church of the past, relying on the tested wisdom of the generations.
The Situational Perspective: Calvin recognised that a worship service isn't to be shaped only by theological and historical considerations. He often said that 'whatever edifies' should be done; that that is the golden rule in worship: 'If we let love be our guide, all will be safe.'
Cultural context shapes the service. Observations from NYC:
- Generally, classical music and liturgy appeal to the educated.
- Generally, contemporary praise/worship approaches are far more likely to bring together a diversity of racial groups.
- Generally, young professional Anglos, especially of the more artistic bent, are highly attracted to the convergence of liturgical/historical with eclectic musical forms.
- Generally baby boomer families are highly attracted to seeker-sensitive worship and the more ahistorical, sentimental Christian contemporary songs.
Think about who is in your community and skew your worship service toward them. Bear in mind that a church's model and core values shape the service. Every church should do worship, evangelism, teaching, community building and service - but every model relates these elements to one another in different ways.
The existential perspective: Finally it is necessary to be aware of our own personal affinities, what we like or dislike in our own experience of worship.
We must be aware and be careful not to try to theologically justify what is essentially out personal preference for worship, nor should be put up with being in worship services that leave us personally feeling cold to God:
If we have the personality of the contemplative - one who loves quiet and thoughtful reflection - we may have a lot of trouble concentrating on God in a highly charismatic worship service.Seeker or evangelistic?
A worship service can be both evangelistically effective and also edify and educate Christians. Keller's conviction is that we achieve this by aiming not at either of those goals but instead focus on being gospel centred.
Evangelistic worship: 1 Cor 14 promotes the idea that prophecy should be prized above tongues since he leads to evangelism. Acts 2 at Pentecost, the Spirit's activity leads to gospel interest and then salvation.
We can conclude then:
1. Nonbelievers are expected to be present in Christian worship.
2. Nonbelievers should find the praise of Christians to be comprehensible:
It is a false dichotomy to insist we must choose between seeking to please God and being concerned with how unchurched people feel or what they might be thinking about during our worship services.3. Nonbelievers can fall under conviction and be converted through comprehensible worship.
We are called not simply to communicate the gospel to nonbelievers; we must also intentionally celebrate the gospel before them.Three Practical Tasks For Evangelistic Worship
2. Get nonbelievers into a worship service:
The best way to get Christians to bring non-Christians to a worship service is to worship as if there are dozens of skeptical onlookers. If we worship as if they are there, eventually they will be.1. Make worship comprehensible to nonbelievers:
a. worship and preach in the vernacular3. Lead people to Commitment.
b. explain the service as you go along
c. directly address and welcome nonbelievers
d. consider using highly skilled arts in worship: 'excellent aesthetics includes outsiders, while mediocre aesthetics excludes. The low level of artistic quality in many churches guarantees that only insiders will continue to come. For the non-Christian, the attraction of good art will play a major role in drawing them in.'
e. celebrate deeds of mercy and justice
f. present the sacraments so as to make the gospel clear
g. preach grace
You can do this in the service or after. In Redeemer they use the Lord's Supper and state it like this:
'If you are not in a saving relationship with God through Christ today, do not take the bread and the cup, but as they come around, take Christ. Receive him in your heart as those around you receive the food. Then immediately afterward, come up and tell an officer or a pastor about what you've done so we can get you ready to receive the Supper the next time as a child of God.'After-meetings have a been an historic way churches have struck upon the moment often created by the sermon. Asking people to come back or to come to a small group is asking a lot of them, but asking them to come into a side room for further enquiry may be just what they need. The preacher could host a simple Q&A session or guidance for the next step.
Chapter 24: Connecting people to one another
The gospel creates community. Therefore, or accordingly, it follows that the chief way we should disciple people (or if you prefer to form them spiritually) is through community. Growth in grace, wisdom and character does not happen primarily in classes and instruction, through large gatherings, or even in solitude. Most often growth happens through deep relationships and in communities where the implications of the gospel are worked our cognitively and worked in practically.
Just as the single most formative experience in our lives is our membership in a nuclear family, so the main way we grow in grace and holiness is through deep involvement in the family of God. Christian community is more than just a supportive fellowship; it is an alternate society. And it is through this alternate human society that God shapes us into who and what we are.Western believers tend to think we show Christlikeness through our individual lives as believers. But it is just as important to exhibit Christlikeness through our corporate life together.
Community and our character
In the teacher/student relationship they connect primarily on the level of intellect. This isn't how Jesus connected with his followers. Instead he created a community of learning and practice in which there was plenty of time to work out truth in discussion, dialogue, and application. This example suggests that we best learn and apply what we are learning in small groups and among friends, not in academic settings alone.
Our character is mainly shaped by our primary social community - the people with whom we eat, play, converse, counsel, and study.
Community and our behaviour
Far mroe of the biblical ethical prescriptions are addressed to us as a community than as individuals. The 10Cs were given to Israel that they might be an alternate community. Most of the ethical principles or rules in the Bible are not simply codes of behaviour for individuals to follow; they are descriptions of a new community that bears the spiritual fruit of love and holiness.
The battle against sinful habits and idolatrous affections is best worked out in community.
Community and growing to know God better
It's through interacting with others that we see different aspects of God's dealing with them and us so grow to know him more too as a result.
...
Comment on midweek community and Sundays. Keller makes clear the challenges of building community in a city environment and concludes it by stating:
Unless the number of people in midsize and small groups is at least half the number of the people who gather for worship and teaching on Sunday, your church is heading in the direction of being a consumer centre rather than a community...
Christians community is perhaps the main way that we bear witness to the world, form Christlike character, practice a distinctively Christian style of life, and know God personally.
...
A form of spiritual growth that isn't purely corporate (as in the medieval and pre-modern churches) or purely individualistic (as in the over emphasis on isolated spiritual experiences and disciplines).
In 'The Grounded Gospel' Gary Parrett and J. I. Packer urge contemporary Christians to recover catechetical instruction to the life of the church. They argue for a form of discipleship that includes three ancient and biblical summaries:
- The Apostle's Creed (belief)
- The Ten Commandments (practice)
- The Lord's Prayer (experience)
When considering how people grow Keller says:
1) Recognise that seekers need process.
He sites the shift from mid twentieth century 'crusades' and rallies to Alpha course style processes as the church recognised the need to help people from a more pagan background learn about Christianity.
Personal identity and sin
Our natural condition makes us 'glory empty' - starved for significance and honour and a sense of worth. sin make us feel superior and overconfident (because at a deep level we feel guilty and insecure). Some people's glory emptiness primarily takes the form of bravado and evident pride; for others, it takes the form of self-deprecation and self-loathing. Most of us are wracked by both impulses. Either way, until the gospel changes us, we will use people in relationships. We do not work for the sake of the work; we do not relate for the sake of the person. Rather, we work and relate to bolster our own self-image - to derive it, essentially from others.
The gospel makes us neither self-confident nor self-disdaining but gives us boldness and humility that can increase together.
Community:
Strong community is formed by powerful common experiences, as when people survive a flood or fight together in a battle. When they emerge on the other side, this shared experience becomes the basis for a deep, permanent bond that is stronger than blood. The more intense the experience the more intense the bond. When we experience Christ's radical grace through repentance and faith, it becomes the most intense, foundational event of our lives.
We often think of community as simply one more thing we have to follow in the rules of behaviour. "Ok, I have to read my Bible, pray, stay sexually pure - and I need to go to fellowship." But the community is best understood as the way we are ot do all that Christ told us to do in the world. Community is more than just the result of the preaching of the gospel; it is itself a declaration and expression of the gospel.
Chapter 25: Connecting People to the City
Biblical foundations for ministries of mercy and justice
1. Christians are to love their neighbour. (in OT they were commanded to recognise the poor, immigrant and single-parent families as neighbours), in the NT Jesus' parable of Good Samaritan reemphasises the idea of the needy being our neighbours. God is a God of justice and anyone who has a relationship with him will be concerned about justice as well.
2. Christians are called to serve. The Christian pattern of greatness takes its lead from Jesus are declared 'I am among you as one who serves.'
3. Christians are instructed to 'do justice' or 'live justly.' OT scholar says 'the righteous are willing to disadvantage themselves to advantage the community; the wicked are willing to disadvantage the community to advantage themselves.'
Most people think of 'wickedness' as disobeying the Ten Commandments, as actively breaking the law by lying or committing adultery. And those things are, of course, wicked! But lying and adultery are best understood as the visible tup of the iceberg of wickedness. Below the surface, less visible but no less wicked, are things like not feeding the poor when we have the power to do so, or taking so much income out of business we own that our employees are paid poorly, or shovelling snow from our own driveway without even thinking to do the same for our elderly neighbours. In all these ways we disadvantage others by advantaging ourselves.
With this understanding, we begin to see that justice is an everyday activity; it is not to be pursued only in courts or legislatures. Living justly means living in constant recognition of the claims of community on us; it means disadvantaging ourselves in order to advantage others.
Practical approaches for ministries of mercy and justice
Once we answer the question of 'why' the church should participate in ministries of mercy and justice, we must still address the question of 'how' it will do so. How...
1. Relief. Giving direct aid to meet physical, material and social needs. Good though this is, when not combined with other types of assistance, it will invariably create patterns of dependency.
2. Development. Bringing a person or community to self-sufficiency. Individually this may look like education, job-training/creation. For a neighbourhood or community it means social and financial being reinvested into a system - housing development, home ownership etc.
3. Reform. Social reform moves beyond the relief of immediate needs and seeks to change the social conditions that caused the problem.
How should the local church participate? Keller suggests:
I believe the local church should concentrate on the first level of assistance (relief) and some degree the second (development). At the second and third levels, in the domains of community development, social reform, and addressing social structures, I think it is generally best of believer to work through associations and organisations rather than directly through the local church.Considering our philosophy of ministry to the poor:
1. Level of priority: How much should we help? Given how expensive this ministry can be, how much of a priority should be it? Consider the distinction made in Acts 6 where deacons were appointed to give concerted focus to the serving of needs within their church. Someone in your church should be set apart to meet material and felt needs through deeds.
2. Defining 'the poor': Whom should we help?
3. Conditional or unrestricted: When, and under what conditions, do we help? Galatians 6:10 is a good guiding principle here 'let us do good to all, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.'
4. Relief, development, and reform: In what way do we help? Should the church get into politics or stick with feeding the hungry?
Consider Emperor Julian's objection to the 'impious Galileans' who support 'not only their own poor but ours as well,'
Chapter 26: Connecting people to the Culture
In the West during the time of Christendom, the church could afford to limit its discipleship and training of believers to prayer, Bible study and evangelism because most Christians were not facing non-Christian values at work, in their neighbourhoods, or at school:
In a mission church today, however, believers are surrounded by a radically non-Christian culture. They require much more preparation and education to 'think Christianly' about all of life, public and private, and about how to do their work with Christian distinctiveness.Legalism and dualism are actually related. The gospel of grace challenges both. If we assume that we are saved by the purity and rightness of our lives, we are encouraged to stay within the confines of the church, content to be in relationships and situations where we don't have to deal with nonbelievers and their ideas.
The opposite of dualism (sacred/secular divide) is worldview Christianity. christianity is more than simply a set of beliefs I hold so I can achieve salvation for my individual soul. It is also a distinct way of understanding and interpreting everything in the worldWork that honours God:
The sixteenth century Protestant Reformers believed that 'secular' work is as valuable and Gond honouring as Christian ministry. When we use our gifts in work - whether by making clothes, building machines or software, practicing law, tilling fields, mending broken bodies, or nurturing children - we are answering God's call to serve the human community. Our work then, whatever it is, matters greatly to God.And 'God matters to all our work' The gospel shapes the motives, manner and methods of our day to day working life as well.
We must help people see how the gospel shapes our work in at least four ways:
1. Our faith changes our motivation for work. We work for him under his watchful eye.
2. Our faith changes our conception of work. Simple tasks such as making a shoe or digging a ditch are ways to serve God and build up human community.
3. Our faith provides high ethics for Christians in the workplace.
4. Our faith gives us the basis for reconceiving the very way in which our kind of work is done. Every society has a map of what jobs are most important. With the gospel at the centre of our worldview our idols come down and we value things more accurately.
The worldview behind your work:
Are you helping people think about the worldviews behind their work? Encourage them to ask questions like these:
1. What worldviews are predominant in my profession?
2. What are the underlying assumptions about meaning, morality, origin, and destiny?
3. What are the chief fears or threats? What groups or ideas are seen as the enemy?
4. What are the idols? What are the hopes?
5. What is the story line of the culture in which I live?
6. How do those worldviews affect both the form and content of my work? How can I work not just with excellence but with Christian distinctiveness?
7. Which parts of the culture's dominant views/theories are basically in line with the gospel and make it possible for me to agree with and use them?
8. Which parts of the dominant views/theories are basically irresolvable without Christ? How can Christ finish the story? In other words, where must I challenge my culture?
9. What opportunities are there in my profession for serving people, serving society as a whole and witnessing to Christ and the kingdom of God?
The church ought to help people work in three specific ways: accountably, distinctively and excellently.
Accountably. We need to provide wha Keller calls 'the most basic means of grace': prayer, mutual accountability, community and shepherding oversight to everyone regardless of work - life balance. Reflect on these questions: Should some groups meet only monthly face-to-face but weekly online? Should some church staff be released to do more frequent one-on-three shepherding and discipleship?
At Redeemer they have 'vocational fellowships' made up of Christians in the same vocation who band together to minister to one another in the ways mentioned above.
Distinctively: Worldview development and training. The question for the church is this: If we believe that Jesus is Lord in every area of life, how do we train our people in the practice of that lordship? This requires some older accomplished Christians in a field, younger arriving Christians in a field and teachers knowledgable in the Bible, theology and church history.
Excellently: Mentoring and cultural production. Discipleship and entreprenuership within the workplace. At Redeemer they have an annual 'Dragon's Den' type thing for profit and non-profit ventures. In these competitions those who present plans must show how the gospel informs the integration of their faith and work.
Part 8: Movement Dynamics
Chapter 27: Movements and Institutions
Keller starts by describing the problem created by pioneering missions of the 19th C. Too often these missions created dependant churches unable to reproduce themselves since they were dependant upon the missions organisation/denomination to provide them with money and leaders. A different approach pioneered by the likes of Hudson Taylor sought to create independent churches able to reproduce themselves from inception. Hudson Taylor and the like:
Wanted churches to have a dynamism that made them able to grow from within without needing to be propped up with money and leaders from outside. They wanted these churches to be more than just sound institutions; they wanted them to be vital and dynamic movements.Church growth. Referring back to the garden analogy in chapter 1 Keller reminds us that church growth considers at least three different dynamics: The skill/diligence of the gardener, the soil's fertility and the weather conditions. Only one of these aspects of growth has to do with our ability and effort, the other two rely on God's sovereignty. Keller makes the useful point that a lot of church-growth gurus tend only to emphasise the 'human dynamic' and don't give enough due attention to 'God's sovereignty'.
Movements and institutions. It is not the case that movements are good and institutions are bad. Organisations should have both institutional characteristics and movement dynamics. Institutionalising things helps. Keller uses the example of buying groceries. There are institutionalised ways of buying groceries that shops change at their peril. For organisations institutionalising can be a useful when it preserves an established authority that preserves values from the past. Institutions bring order to life and establish many of the conditions for human flourishing.
Movements however have more to do with the assertion of individual preference and bringing forth the realities of the future.
Four key characteristics of movements would be:
Vision, sacrifice, flexibility with unity and spontaneity1. Compelling vision of the future. Movements state 'if this is where you want to go, come along with us.' Whereas in an institution it is the rules and established patterns that guides day-to-day choices, in a movement it is the shared vision. This motivates all manner of activity.
2. Sacrificial commitment due to shared vision. In the early days of any movement the main actors often work without compensation, constantly living in the threat of bankruptcy. There is no more practical index of whether your church has movement dynamics than examining whether you have a culture of sacrifice. If top leaders of the church are the only ones making all the sacrifices, then you don't have a movement culture.
3. Generous flexibility toward other organisations and people outside their own membership.
4. They spontaneously produce new ideas and leaders from within. Institutions tend to reward leadership according to tenure and the accrual of accepted qualifications and credentials whereas movements take risks and hire/reward based on results.
David Hurst a Harvard scholar sums up how movements become institutions:
Vision becomes strategy, teams become structure, networks become organisations and recognition becomes compensation.We mustn't however draw up too many 'good = movement', 'bad = institution' in our thinking. As much as there is a lot to be avoided about institutionalising church, the reality is that movements have to institutionalise aspects of what they're aiming for if they're to be effective. Keller states:
The vision becomes a 'tradition' that the movement guards and passes on... Any vision that is compelling will be a big one and big visions require long-term effort - an effort that will require for example, brining in enough revenue so that the founders can pay off their credit cards and have enough to raise their families.He then helpfully says:
A movement that refuses to take on some organisational characteristics - authority, tradition, unity of belief and quality control - will fragment and dissipate.The job of the movement leader is to steer the ship safely between the two perils of a movement losing its vitality or its effectiveness.
Chapter 28: The Church as an organised organism
As much as we clarify the differences between movements and institutions, Kellers says, we must recognise that:
churches are and must be institutions. But they must also be movements.The scriptures envision churches that are both organism and organisation. They are organised organisms.
The biblical language implies that there is an organic, self-propagating, dynamic power operating within the church - the word of God bearing fruit all on its own with little institutional support. And yet whenever Paul sees a church started he very quickly appoints leaders to cultivate it and emoby the church's apostolically inherited teaching and purpose.
From the beginning the church was both institution and movement. The dual nature of the church is grounded in the work of the Spirit, and it is the Spirit who makes the church simultaneously a vital organism and a structures organisation.
Jesus: the General and special office
He was prophet (since he preached and embodied God's word and character) but also priest:
While a prophet is an advocated for God before people, a priest is an advocate for the people before God's presence, ministering with mercy and sympathy.The General office of believers
1. Every believer is a prophet. Christians are called to witness to the truth before non believing friends and neighbours and also to admonish believers with the word of Christ. The assumption is that word of Christ is dwelling in us richly.
2. The Bible calls every believer a priest. We are to daily offer ourselves as living sacrifices but also 'do good and share with others' (H13:16)
3. Every believer is a King. We rule and reign with Christ (Eph. 2:6). We are to confess our sins to one another, not just an elder, we are called to minister to each other, to pray for one another. The kingly authority in each believer also means that each one of us has been empowered and called to defeat the world, flesh and devil.
The Spirit-equipped calling of every believer to be a prophet, priest and king has been called the 'general office' we each occupy.
Keeping a healthy understanding of this prevents us from becoming a top-down, conservative, innovation-allergic bureaucracy.The Special office of minister
The Spirit gives every Christian believer spiritual gifts for ministry to ensure the church remains able to produce innovation and life from 'grassroots'. For these gifts to best be utilised within the church requires some level of governance and organisation or structure.
The distinctive blueprint for your church - the pattern of ministries God desires it to have - is shaped by the gifts assigned to the leaders and members by Jesus himself.Centuries of history have taught us that it is quite difficult to keep order and ardor together. There needs to be a healthy, organised and honouring of all the gifts in place.
Movement dynamics within the local church
A compellingly articulated church vision is in reality a contextualised way of expressing the biblical teaching about the gospel and the work of the church.
Selfless devotion is not something that leaders can create (apart from emotional manipulation). Only leaders who have the vision and devotion can kindle this sacrificial spirit in others.
Movement-oriented churches think more about reaching the city, while institutionalised churches put emphasis on growing their church's particular expression or denomination.
Movement dynamics are often created by social and external factors. One writer points out that it is in settings where the church has been marginalised and Christians rejected (even though there may not be any overt persecution), that they also become the most active missionally. Think about how the Jews and gays, a small minority in society have gained such a loud voice and been so missionally active.
It isn't a size thing: Experience has shown that churches and ministries of all sizes can have an institutionalised form or can exhibit movement dynamics.
Spontaneity without top-down command enables growth.
Organising for movement dynamics:
The Bible instructs churches to have elders but it says virtually nothing about how this team is to be organised. A key to navigating the creative tension of scripture is to avoid allowing humanly made structures to become idols.The way God renews his people in the OT is a helpful pattern for church renewal for us:
- The people returned to biblical texts in order to remember the things God had called them to do and be.
- They looked forward to the next chapter, to the new challenges facing them.
- They rededicated their lives and resources to God for the next stage of the journey.
This renewal must happen frequently in any church for it to remain an organised organism.
Church Planting as a movement dynamic
A church that is an organised organism will exhibit movement dynamics not only inside but also beyond itself.
A key aspect of a healthy church is church planting and that planting must be natural and customary, not traumatic and episodic.Normal ministry in Acts:
1) They evangelised (or 'gospeled') the city. To 'gospel' is to do a great deal more than preach sermons. Paul preached in synagogues, shared in small group Bible studies, spoke in marketplaces, lead discussions in rented halls, and spoke to people one-to-one.
2) Incorporation into community. New believers were 'congregated' into a community that assembles regularly.
3) Leadership development. In each place Paul appointed a plurality of elders who took on the task of teaching and shepherding the people in the faith.
When Paul began meeting with them (the converts) they were called 'disciples' (A14:22) but when he left them they were known as 'churches' (A14:23).
To put it simply, the multiplication of churches is as natural in the book of Acts as the multiplication of individual converts.Churches are planted by pioneering work or by churches giving planting new congregations.
We should work to make church planting natural.
A natural church planting mind-set means that church leaders will think of church planting as just one of the things the church does along with everything else. Church planting should not be like building a building - one big traumatic event followed by a deep collective sigh of relief that it's done.To make church planting natural a church must:
1. Be willing to give away resources and lose control of your money, members and leaders.
2. Be willing to give up some control of the shape of the ministry itself.
3. Be willing to care for the kingdom even more than for your tribe.
Ultimately though we don't look to Paul to teach us about church planting, we look to Jesus.
Objections:
But we have churches now. We should renew existing ones rather than plant new ones!
We need fully-evangelistic churches rather than evangelistic events. Experience teaches that many of the people who make 'decisions' for Christ at one off events, don't result in changed lives. Why?
Many decisions are not true spiritual conversions; they are only the beginning of a journey of seeking God... Many people come to faith through a process of mini-decisions.To summarise: Vigorous church planting is one of the best ways to renew the existing churches of a city, as well as the best single way to grow the whole body of Christ in a city.
The 1% Rule:
Lyle Schaller talks about the 1% rule: 'Each year any association of churches should plant new congregations at the rate of 1% of their existing total; otherwise, that association is in maintenance and decline. If an association wants to grow 50% plus in a generation, it must plant 2-3% per year.
How many churches does the city need? Answer: Far more than you think.
Because of the institutionalised pull on churches it is inevitable that some in a city are enduring because of being continually revitalised, some lose flexibility, some stagnate and some die - each year.
We should not simply aim to maintain the church's traditional place in a city or society. We long to see Christianity grow exponentially in conversions, churches and influence in our city. While it requires many kinds of ministries to achieve this outcome, aggressive church planting is the trigger for them all.How to plant a church: the stages
LEARN - about people in your community, seek to know them, what their fears and hoeps are. Interview and read sociological reports on them. Create a profile of the religious bodies int eh area. How is the church doing? How is it organised?
LOVE - grow in your love for God by learning to maintain healthy spirituality. Cultivate good gospel habits. Begin to share the gospel and spiritually direct people in your neighbourhood and community. Model the gospel through community service and in your family life. Experience the gospel in deep community as you develop friendships.
LINK - Embody the gospel and show how it connects with the people you're wanting to reach. What will make the people in your neighbourhood glad that you're there? Connect with individuals and community leaders and begin to meet the perceived needs of the community.
LAUNCH - Develop action steps and goals that be used as benchmarks to track progress. Reality will always alter your plan, but the planning process will equip you to deal with surprises and new realities in a way that is informed by and consistent with your model and vision. Include these basics: goals for funding and how tot reach them. Goals for concrete ministries and how to reach them. Goals for leadership development and how to reach them.
The effectiveness of plants
New church planting is the best way to increase the number of believers in a city, and one of the best ways to renew the whole body of Christ. The evidence for this statement is strong - biblically, sociologically and historically. Nothing else has the consistent impact of dynamic, extensive church planting.Chapter 30: The City and the Gospel Ecosystem
It takes more than one type of church to reach a city.
Unity is not simply the work of the Spirit but the very instrument through which the Spirit works. This is why it is vital to maintain the unity of the Spirit.
Because of this belief:
Redeemer Presbyterian Church has for a number of years given money and resources to churches of other denominations that are planting churches. We have helped to start Pentecostal churches, Baptist churches, and Anglican churches, as well as Presbyterian churches. Four our efforts we have received sharp criticism and a lot of amazed stares.Statement worth getting in your heart:
There is no single way of doing church that employs the right biblical or even the right cultural model.Keller shares form his experience of being pastor at a small community church for 9 years. He wasn't aware of the different ministry emphases a church can have (doctrine/community/worship/evangelism/justice) and so tried to impose the one model of healthy church he had seen previously in a college city that did intense Bible studies:
Years after I left this church, the congregation hosted a reception for Kathy and me on the twenty-fifth anniversary of my ordination. At one point in the festivities, a number of people shared one thing they remembered hearing me say during my ministry among them. It struck me afterward that not one person quoted my words from a sermon! Every single person shared something I had said during one-on-one pastoral care.Without an acceptance of the value of different church models and the realisation that you cannot be a church that is excellent/emphasised at everything you'll struggle to both appreciate the catholicity of the church and be as fruitful as you might otherwise be:
Your own movement may plant cookie-cutter churches in neighbourhoods where that model is inappropriate or may employ leaders whose gifts don't fit it. Your own movement would risk becoming too homogenous, reaching only on kind of neighbourhood or one kind of person, and fail to reflect the God-ordained diversity of humanity in your church. As much as we want to believe that most people will want to become our particular kind of Christian, it is not true.Producing a movement and being effective in reaching people.
Referring again to the metaphor of gardening Keller points out that we cannot produce a movement on our own:
Gardening is the way we humanly contribute to the movement. But the second set of factors in a movement - the conditions - belongs completely to God. He can open individual hearts ('soil') to the Word ('seed') in any numbers he sovereignly chooses. And he can also open a culture to the gospel as a whole ('weather').
In working well with others Keller gives a list of 'how to do polemics' (acknowledge and challenge differences). He stresses the need to represent others fairly, not attribute beliefs to them that they don't hold, represent their opinion in its strongest form and seek to persuade rather than antagonise. He quote Calvin on a good point about popularity:
'There are, as you know, two kinds of popularity: the one when we seek favour from motives of ambition and the desire of pleasing; the other, when, by fairness and moderation, we gain their esteem so as to make them teachable by us.' John CalvinWhat is the ecosystem that the Holy Spirit uses to produce a gospel movement? Keller picture it as three concentric rings
First ring: Contextualised Theological Vision
Second ring: Church planting and church renewal movements
Third ring: Specialised ministries
Tipping points that led to change:
In sociological terms neighbourhoods stay largely the same if the new types of residents comprise less than 5% of the population. When the number of new residents reaches somewhere between5-25% the whole neighbourhood shifts and undergoes rapid and significant change.
Evangelical Christians (as a stereotype) are as strange and off-putting to urban residents as gay people used to be to most Americans.How likely is it that an urban gospel movement could grow so strong that it reaches a citywide tipping point?
We know this can happen through God's grace. The history books give us examples. We see how the exponential growth of Christianity changed the Roman world in the first three centuries AD and how it changed pagan northern Europe from AD 500 to 1500. We have stories of how the evangelical awakening in the eighteenth century changed British society in the nineteenth. But we don't yet know what it would look like for one of the great culture-forming global cities of our world today to become 10% (or more) gospel-believing Christian in its core, with believers playing key roles in the arts, sciences, the academy, and business, while at the same time using their power, wealth and influence for the good of those on the margins of society.
Epilogue: Late Modernity and the Center Church
The root idea of modernity was the overturning of all authority outside the self. Until then and for a long while until that root idea took effect people were able to root their identities to a large degree in their family and their nation: Yet today, even these institutions are eroding, worn away by the 'acid' of the modern principle that individual happiness and autonomy must come before anything else.
We're not so much 'post' modern as we are 'late' modern: The main principles of modernity, the autonomy of the individual, and personal freedom over the claims of tradition, religion, family and community, is what we have today - intensified.
Effective ministry:
It is not a cliche to say that a sense of inadequacy is a prerequisite for any success you will ever have in such a ministry.And here's a great illustration and quote to end this book (and these notes) on:
'Palm Monday'
The little donkey awoke with a smile on his face. He had been dreaming of the previous day. He stretched and then happily walked out into the street, but the many passersby simply ignored him. Confused, he went over to the crowded market area. With his ears held high with pride he strutted right down the middle of it. "Here I am, people!" he said to himself. But they stared in confusion, and some angrily struck him to drive him away. "What do you think you are doing, you ass, walking into the marketplace like this?"
"Throw your garments down," he said crossly. "Don't you know who I am?" They just looked at him in amazement.
Hurt and confused, the donkey returned home to his mother. "I don't understand," he said to her. "Yesterday they waved palm branches at me. They shouted 'Hosanna' and 'Hallelujah.' Today they treat me like I'm a nobody!"
"Foolish child," she said gently, "don't you realise that without him - you can do nothing?"
You can do this ministry with God's help - so give it all you've got. You can't do this ministry without God's help - so be at peace. Jesus captured both of these truths in one verse recorded in John's gospel: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit' [but] apart from me you can do nothing" (John 15:5)
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