Forerunners of the Future
Turning back the clock
One of the most common medicines that evangelical church prescribes for itself is the old "let's get back to basics" idea. It is, for me at least, a difficult pill to swallow. In the charismatic and pentecostal traditions it is the incessant tug of "We need revival!" Which translates to me: "Lets go back to the thoughts and practices of the 50's and 60's." While it is so true that we need a God-driven intervention in our world today, I don't believe that we have to rebuild last nights campfire to find it. A few years ago, as my heart was being pulled by the Lord into a more real relationship with God, I found that, at least privately, I began to turn my back on going back to the roots of my own tradition.
The cool post-modern hipsters now tell us to get back into the ancient practices of Christianity. I have chosen to follow their trail myself. I walk labyrinths, embrace the silence, meditate on the scriptures and pray the office and anything else ancient fresh. After all, a little lectio divina and the centering prayer, never hurt anybody right? In fact, not only did it not hurt me, it is completely revitalizing my personal friendship with God. As I walk along this path with God, I am finding that Jen and I are becoming more and more like the hermits of the second and third century: Living our life, growing with our God, and touching whoever might bump into us along the higway. (This might be exactly where we should be). But as we go to our churches, visit churches and interact with church people, (we know sooo many) we can't stop ourselves from discussing how the present modern American church could be changed to really make a splash in our culture today. (Maybe this thought in itself is misguided and arrogant, but nonetheless, most of us think it all the time.)
I began to develop this thought that if we could just go back to the New Testament, you know, if we could somehow duplicate the book of Acts church, that maybe we could rock the world in the same fashion as the first century Jesus people did. My thesis was this: In order for the body of Christ to effectively fulfill the purpose of Christ in our world today, we need to get back to the New Testament Model.
That phrase, "New Testament model" has become a bit of a polyseme. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, uses it to support their favored way of doing church. The model is basically built around Acts 2:42-47. There is teaching, praying, fellowship. You meet, you eat, and you share everything in common. The problem is no one can really agree on how to interpret these passages in 21st century America. I am presently reading a book called God's Example Church, and while it presents a scathing honest comparison between modern christianity and the example of in Acts, it's solutions are, in a word, unrealistic. Just how are we supposed to live communal, share and pray in our world today? Sure there are examples of people doing it, but to most of us they are considered marginal and wacky. (not that there's anything wrong with that).
All of this has led me to this moment, where I am saying that I think, at least for the next 5 minutes, that we are just unable replicate the "New Testament Model". I agree with Bosch in Believing in the Future..."The solution does not lie merely in turning the clock back and insisting that, come what may, we just have to learn to believe again." After hearing many a sermon, teaching and talk about believing again, it is plain harder than it looks.
You can't get to tommorrow by repeating yesterday. You get to tommorrow by surviving today. The church of tommorrow should be new...different. Built on the lessons of the past, transformed by the present and reborn in the future. (Which brings me to the concept of the phoenix church...which needs to be addressed in separate post.)
I guess the questions I have are these:
- What are some of the ways that "turning back the clock" works? doesn't work?
- Is there any true "New Testament Model"?
- Do you know of ways that people are living out their true "New Testament Model" with any success?
The cool post-modern hipsters now tell us to get back into the ancient practices of Christianity. I have chosen to follow their trail myself. I walk labyrinths, embrace the silence, meditate on the scriptures and pray the office and anything else ancient fresh. After all, a little lectio divina and the centering prayer, never hurt anybody right? In fact, not only did it not hurt me, it is completely revitalizing my personal friendship with God. As I walk along this path with God, I am finding that Jen and I are becoming more and more like the hermits of the second and third century: Living our life, growing with our God, and touching whoever might bump into us along the higway. (This might be exactly where we should be). But as we go to our churches, visit churches and interact with church people, (we know sooo many) we can't stop ourselves from discussing how the present modern American church could be changed to really make a splash in our culture today. (Maybe this thought in itself is misguided and arrogant, but nonetheless, most of us think it all the time.)
I began to develop this thought that if we could just go back to the New Testament, you know, if we could somehow duplicate the book of Acts church, that maybe we could rock the world in the same fashion as the first century Jesus people did. My thesis was this: In order for the body of Christ to effectively fulfill the purpose of Christ in our world today, we need to get back to the New Testament Model.
That phrase, "New Testament model" has become a bit of a polyseme. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, uses it to support their favored way of doing church. The model is basically built around Acts 2:42-47. There is teaching, praying, fellowship. You meet, you eat, and you share everything in common. The problem is no one can really agree on how to interpret these passages in 21st century America. I am presently reading a book called God's Example Church, and while it presents a scathing honest comparison between modern christianity and the example of in Acts, it's solutions are, in a word, unrealistic. Just how are we supposed to live communal, share and pray in our world today? Sure there are examples of people doing it, but to most of us they are considered marginal and wacky. (not that there's anything wrong with that).
All of this has led me to this moment, where I am saying that I think, at least for the next 5 minutes, that we are just unable replicate the "New Testament Model". I agree with Bosch in Believing in the Future..."The solution does not lie merely in turning the clock back and insisting that, come what may, we just have to learn to believe again." After hearing many a sermon, teaching and talk about believing again, it is plain harder than it looks.
You can't get to tommorrow by repeating yesterday. You get to tommorrow by surviving today. The church of tommorrow should be new...different. Built on the lessons of the past, transformed by the present and reborn in the future. (Which brings me to the concept of the phoenix church...which needs to be addressed in separate post.)
I guess the questions I have are these:
- What are some of the ways that "turning back the clock" works? doesn't work?
- Is there any true "New Testament Model"?
- Do you know of ways that people are living out their true "New Testament Model" with any success?
posted by Jerod at 1:22 PM
4 Comments:
I find myself constantly drawn to models. When I was younger my dad and I would spend hours in the evening building models. We had B-52 bombers to the Blue Angels and even quite a few hot rod cars. We use to take the airplanes and hang them from the ceiling with fishing line. I remember laying in bed and just looking up at these model airplanes with great wonder and excitment. Thinking back on what drew me to models then is the same thing reason I seem to find myself constantly looking at church models today. With great amazment God puts together things that fit just perfect and in the right order. I spend more time then I will admit to just looking at church models and ministry models but nothing revelutionized my thinking as Leonard Sweets mental model. Moving away from the mission statement full of great words like "compassionate" and "reaching out". Sweet's personal image statement is a child on a swing set in the middle of a playground. The child sings back and forth and everytime going back not just to the 50's and 60's but 2000 years and embrassing the first century church but at the same time, with just as much passion and mometum of the force that moves us back, we move forward. We embrace today and tomorrow.
I don't think we can nor should we turn the clock back but use the momentum of our past heritage and traditions to thrust us into the future. I am sure there are churches that are doing things as the the first century model. Solomon's Porch in Calif, Matthewa's House and maybe The Next Level Church are churches that come to mind who would be a 1st century model. I think about it differently. It is an additude of the heart and not a model we can piece things together in order to make things work, but rather, a group of "heart-minded" people who share in common a desire of seeing people come into a full relationship with God.
When you play spades, you will some times lose a trick to someone who trumps you with a low spade. A Len Sweet quote is the ultimate post modern discussion trump card. Great post.
You are right though, it is more of a heart deal to try to follow the New Testament Model. Those examples you mention are very cool. But can they really follow the New Testament example, all the way out? I mean, to what extent do they follow it? Some of my thoughts tell me that unless you go down an extreme radical path, you will never see an extreme radical result.
Figured I should use my trump card when I had it.
I am not sure if the NT model is as extreme as we make make it out. If if it does, the extreme part of this model would come from the fact that there was not a model to learn from and copy. I am becoming more and more convinced that the NT model was not a model at all but a group of people just like the church I am part of and Solomon's Porch and many others. We all struggle through this thing called church and how to do it. We go to the conferences and read all the latest and greatest books telling us about the way things are done over at such and such community church. Just to find out at the end of the day. It is not about what we do but about the people relating to God and Him to us. It is about His interaction with his people.
It is extreme to love God, it is extreme to follow Him and it is extreme to listen to his direction; but the revolution begins when other peoples lives are changed because you love, follow and listen to God. I want to be part of a revolution.
The right wine...I like the sound of that.
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