Missions Misunderstood

Why do millions of people around the world tune in every week (many are even willing to pay for it) to watch a convoluted, (half-baked?), confusing serialized television show about plane crash victims stranded on a mysterious island?

The story.

Questions. Unexpected twists. Attention to detail. Artistic nuance. Mythologies. Love. Danger. The unknown. Intentional lack of resolution. Good and evil. The Supernatural. It draws people in and it hold their attention. It evokes a response and inspires creativity. Communities are built around it.

Contrast that with most presentations of the gospel "story." A neatly packaged presentation that is clear, concise, and full of answers. A "subjective" third-hand account where the allegorical dots are connected by lines of propositional truth. It does little to intrigue and works to leave nothing unexplained. Our story sounds tired, contrived, and commercial.

We have a lot to learn about being storytellers.

From the early days of television through the 1970's, there were three television networks. They had no competition and total control over what Americans watched on TV.

Then came cable. 24 hours a day of news. Sports. Movies. Weather. Home shopping. Music videos. They focused on smaller markets, but gave people what they wanted to watch. Suddenly, people had choices. Satellite expanded the television universe to micro markets. The soap opera network. The game show network. Do-it-yourself home repairs. Extreme sports, classic sports, international sports. Poker.

Now the internet. YouTube. iTunes. Sidereel. Anyone can watch whatever they want, anytime. And not only watch, but connect with other fans and create their own content.

This is happening with mainstream Christianity as well. Splinters, spin-offs, and startups dot the landscape of American Christianity and provide an infinite number of ways for churches to connect and cooperate. Exclusivity is passé; most of the churches involved are aligned with multiple networks. "Loyalty" is redefined; churches maintain these associations only as long as they serve their intended purposes. Christians used to connect via centralized "broadcasts" such as denominations, personalities, or geography. Now they're connected via the "cloud;" allowing them to partner with others according to their beliefs, worldview, practice, politics, and interests. Some are pretty unique. Others are nearly identical.

The Southern Baptist Convention is NBC in the 1960's. Now there are hundreds of ways for likeminded believers to connect with one another. The Founders movement. Purpose Driven. Mosaic. Allelon. Acts 29. Glocal. The Missional Church Network. CBF. New Baptist Covenant. Emergent. The Antioch Church Network is a new channel to watch.

Why does all this matter?

Because it all comes down to influence. You don't need to be the president of anything to change everything for some people. Steve McCoy is a nobody in his church's denomination. To artistic, reformed-leaning, music-loving, post-denominational bloggers, he's a rock star. Follow his blog for a little while and you'll understand.

And because if you're dependent on one of the old broadcast TV-style networks, you need to find some new ways to connect.

As I talk with other Christians about life and society and current events, it strikes me how suspicious we are of everyone. The atheists have taken over the public school system. The homosexuals want to turn all boys gay. The Mexicans are invading. The Muslims want to outlaw Christianity. Universal health care is communism. Don't watch The Golden Compass. The Mormons own Coca-Cola.

My team had an interesting discussion over the last couple of days. This isn't as remarkable as it might sound, but while most people spend Christmas talking about football and shopping, our team talks about ecclesiology. Who says we aren't committed to our jobs? (And no, there is no truth to the rumor that we deliberately discussed "work" issues in an attempt to justify paying for a turkey dinner out of our "Office Expense" accounts.)

I've posted before about my frustrations with communication and word definitions. It seems like every attempt we make at defining or describing what we believe (and why) is lost as the words we use are co-opted by others who use those same words to put a new face on traditionalisms. We've even confused ourselves as we struggle to work through the implications of what we say we're about. Our conversation this week, for example, began with this question: When one of our friends becomes a believer, can we really disciple him/her in their existing social structure?

Conventional missionaries today have begun to adopt the terms "relational," "incarnational," and "missional," but their thought on evangelism and discipleship is usually something like this: Missionaries share the gospel, nationals hear it, some reject it, others respond. Those who respond are then grouped together to form the beginnings of a "church." Another school proposes to switch the order to "group them and win them," in order to disciple people within community.

Our collective experience has taught us that although this sort of "winning/grouping" approach to church planting sounds like a good strategy, it actually does quite a bit to hinder the "indigenousness" of the foundation that we lay. Individual believers are separated from their natural social groups and placed into these artificial, "Christian" ones for the sake of support and encouragement. But that separation greatly reduces the new believer's influence in the relationships he/she had, and because the bulk of his/her spiritual transformation takes place in private (church), it has little positive impact on the community. It doesn't take long for these new Christians to be so far removed from their own culture that they need to be trained to interact with their lost friends.

So we, despite using the same words, have tried to do things a little differently. Our team's idea has always been to disciple people from wherever they are spiritually to maturity in Christ, without removing them from their existing social environment. Our discussion this week began with a current situation. A friend has recently shown some interest in Jesus. We can see him opening up to us and to the faith we're always talking about. We pray that he will soon be saved. Naturally, this friend lives a lifestyle that does not honor God. He is addicted to drugs and he regularly participates in "trance parties" (Raves put on by "Shaman" DJs who use techno music to entrance partygoers in a pagan spiritual frenzy that sometimes last days and days). Let's say he becomes a believer- can we leave him in that environment and expect him to grow in his faith and be an effecting witness to the people around him?

Again, most people would say no. They would argue that this friend needs to be removed from the dangerous situation so that he can overcome the sin that has bound him, and grow in his faith. I disagree (You expected as much).

I say that the role of the missionary (and yes, this is different from what most would say,) is to serve as spiritual "life-support" for the new believer as they struggle to work out their salvation within their own cultural context. This might mean that we meet with a national believer to disciple and encourage them, but we never "invite them to church." Instead, we pray for God to move among the new believer's circle of friends. We instruct him/her in righteousness, allowing the Holy Spirit to convict them of sin. We encourage him/her to share their faith, and pray for the day when God moves among his/her sphere of influence to plant a church there.

But nobody does it this way. For most of us, this approach is too messy, too limited, and it takes too long. What if they never feel convicted about certain sins? What if they never know another believer? What if, ten years down the road, they're still struggling with basic holiness and remedial theology. How long can a believer survive on only spiritual milk?

It seems to me that our discomfort with Christians who are struggling to make sense of their faith has led us to impose a behavioral conformity that ignores the personal tension that salvation brings. When drug addicts and homosexuals get saved, we require that they immediately stop being those things, and start acting "Christianly." From the outside, it would seem that we interpret the word "repentance" to mean that upon salvation, a person must suddenly exchange public sins for private ones. You cannot be a drug-using, foul-mouthed, homosexual Christian, but an over-eating, gossip who struggles with lust just has "a few things to work on." Is Christianity only about (openly) sinning less?

Leaving a drug addict in a circle of drug addicted friends might seem like a bad idea, but it would allow the addict to see how his newfound faith applies to his real life. It would also allow his friends to see his personal transformation first-hand and allow them to actually participate in it. The power of salvation is most evident when it contrasts with the stark reality of the situation from which we are saved. The soil in which a seed takes root is sufficient for that new plant.

Continuing the thoughts of my previous post: what we need is not more Christians trying to "reach" the "people of the world," but more "people of the world" trying to work out what it means for them to be a Christian.

I spoke with a friend the other day who is constantly on his guard against what he perceives as a secular aggression against him as a Christian. In other words, he's concerned that adulturers, homosexuals, drug users, and democrats all hate him and are out to take away his freedom. According to him, they all have an anti-Christian agenda and want to actively recruit our children, impede our ministries, and make us look bad.

I am aware that we as believers have serious opposition. I know that we face an enemy that doesn't rest in his campaign against us. However, I know many non-Christians. I even know some anti-Christians, and a couple of gays. I've had long conversations with them about my faith. Guess what? The vast majority don't hate us.

They nothing us.

See, for a person to hate another person requires something. You've got to put some energy into hating somebody. It costs you something. Hate means you care, just not in a good way. All of the nonbelievers I know do not even think about Christians, much less care enough to really hate us.

Most of the lost people I come across expect to be judged and persecuted by the people who do call themselves Christians. Some don't even know that serious followers of Jesus even exist.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be on our guard. I'm just not sure we really understand who our enemy is.

Steve McCoy killed his Missional Baptist Blog last week. It was a great forum for missional folks to connect with likeminded people and discuss everything from theology, ministry, culture, and whatever else we wanted. I am thankful for Steve's hard work in maintaining it, and always keeping the discussion fresh and interesting. While I admit that my favorite comment threads were the ones where some wacko would come in and make a couple of crazy remarks and Steve would end up banning him, I think it's really cool that he shut it down.

Why? Because he says that it served its purpose. His blog networked many of the missional leaders in the States and on the mission field. We've worked together to define what we're about, and we've shared ideas of how that might look in the real world. Now, most of us have our own blogs, many of which feature the same comments we were making on his site. Missional Baptist Blog had done what Steve set out to do with it, and now it is time to move on. I think we could learn something from that.

What if all the pastors that read his blog stood up in front of their churches this Sunday, and instead of preaching a sermon, simply announced that they were going to let the church die? Something like: "Folks, I have an announcement to make. We're selling the building, and I'm getting a job at Home Depot." I think it would be a great thing. I'm wondering if most of our churches haven't already reached their expiration date.

Has your church built up leaders? Do you have a real spiritual family that is missionally active in the community? Have you subdivided into Bible Study groups or cell groups? Maybe it's time to shut everything else down. You don't need a building. You don't need professional ministers. You don't need any of the programs that you've got going on. If the system that you've maintained has served its purpose, shut it down.

I believe that this sort of thing is what it would take to make "Christianity" as we know it in the 21st century make sense for me, and I don't think I'm alone.

A few days ago, I took part in a great discussion about faith. A Catholic, an Atheist, an Agnostic, and I (sounds like the beginning to a bad joke) sat around a table in the smoking section of a cafe that was really too small to go to the trouble of designating "sections." We took turns sharing what we believed, but mostly what we didn't believe, and we let everyone speak their mind. After that, we sat in silence while we all processed how differently each of us approach and express our spirituality. The Catholic is religious, but hardly spiritual. The Atheist is spiritual, but in a soulful, dreadlocks and hemp poncho sort of way. The Agnostic is not so much religious as superstitious. As usual, I presented myself as spiritual but not religious. When I say it that way it makes me sound like such a rebel.

After the silence, the Agnostic (appropriately) asked us, "But how do you know?"

Looking back, I'm not exactly sure what she meant by the question. I guess I wasn't the only one guessing, though, because we each took turns answering a different version of it.

"You know a religion is right for you when it is such an influential part of your family and cultural history," the Catholic answered. "Common sense should give you some clues," said the Atheist, accidentally sounding snobbish. "You just know," was the only answer I could come up with. I immediately wished I had come up with something better, you know, more evangelistic.

But then I got to thinking, how do I know? Jesus is the Son of God. He is the Way to the Father. Salvation is found only in Him, and He came that we might have real life; I believe all of this to be true. But how do I know?

I know because I have been convinced by supernatural means. I believe something that is unbelievable because something unbelievable happened to me. I know I have been born again in the same way I know I was born physically. And I know because in Christ, I am not the person I would otherwise be. I know because God has opened my eyes to the spiritual reality.

The national language differentiates between two types of knowledge. One can "know" something in the factual sense of the word. I know where the bank is, I know my phone number, and I know how to drive a car. But there is also another type of knowing, one that explains one's relationship with the subject. This type of knowing starts with an introduction and deepens in familiarity through time and experience. I know the store keeper. I know the city.

Next time I sit down with the group of friends, that's the word I'm going to use, and that's what I'm going to tell them. "You know..." I'll say, "Ever since our talk about our faith a couple weeks ago, I've been thinking about that question..." And that's when I'll tell them how I know.

For the last few days, I've been reading about Jesus in the Gospels. (I got the idea from Mentanna) I've been thinking about how all followers of Jesus see Him through their own cultural lenses. All of them. And I'm struck by the idea that our different interpretations of Jesus can be so, well, different.

Reading just the Gospels has challenged my perspective on Jesus. If you read about Jesus without reading the rest of the Bible (not that we should...), you would likely get, well, a different Jesus. You might get a Jesus who is:

Pro-taxes (Render unto Caesar...) Matthew 22:21
Concerned about helping the needy (Especially widows and orphans) Matthew 25:40
Anti-violence/war (Turn the other cheek) Matthew 5:39
Anti-religion (Rebuked religious leaders) Mark 12:38-40
Concerned with Personal Health (Healed the sick) Mark 8:22
Against Unethical Capitalism (Money-changers in the Temple) Matthew 21:12
Remained in the Jewish tradition (His religion was Jewish, not Christian) Matthew 12:35
Made and Drank Alcohol (Cana Wedding) John 2:1-11
Grace instead of Judgement: Luke 6:36-38
Forgiveness over Justice: Luke 6:28-30
Told stories instead of preaching sermons: Matthew 13:34
Left the meaning unclear: Mark 10:4-11
Never planted a church...

This Jesus would be called a "Liberal" by some believers today.

Anyway, just an observation. I understand that we should look at all of Scripture, but I'm wonder how much of the "Christian religion" is based on the teachings of Christ.

One of the things God has been teaching our team lately is that personality matters. No, I'm not talking about the mega-churches in the United States that seem to be built entirely upon the charismatic and inspirational personality of its pastor. Strangely enough, it is just occurring to us that God may have given us our personalities on purpose.

See, I grew up in a very ministry-minded church environment. Everyone was encouraged to think of others first. To us, being a minister meant ignoring your "self" and intentionally becoming a servant; something that was not natural to any of us. We loved the idea of getting out of our comfort zones and being stretched and challenged in new ways. I'm very thankful for that church family.

I'm pretty sure Jesus had a personality. He was harsh about certain things, had compassion toward needy people, and ran away from his parents at least once (ok, so maybe what He did was nothing like the time I packed up my G.I. Joe backpack and "ran away" to the back yard when I was six, but you know what I mean). But can we say that there is a "Christian" personality?

With our practice of that good theology ("Be like Jesus") also came a subtle, implied message: "It doesn't matter who you are." If you were an impulsive, gregarious person, you needed to cut it out so as to maintain self-control. Shyness was the opposite of boldness, which is something all believer must have, so the timid folks needed to get over their inhibitions. The stoic or melancholy needed to have joy, the dreamers needed to keep their feet on the ground. What we ended up with was a bunch of people who knew a lot about the fruit of the Spirit, but knew nothing about themselves. Ultimately, we couldn't relate to lost people at all. We had worked so hard to be more like who we thought Jesus was, that we had lost our personalities. We became boring people, with no interests, hobbies, or passions. We didn't even enjoy being around ourselves!

So now God is teaching us about personality. That it's ok for some of us to be risk-takers and others to be cautious. We need to class-clowns to keep things interesting and the sensitive ones to feel for us. The optimists, the pessimists, the intense, the cool; they are parts of a healthy and interesting community. The outspoken are as needed as the introspective. I think our personalities are tied to our Spiritual gifts. They are all needed for diversity and balance within the body of Christ.

Maybe God made us the way we are so that we'll have something in common with people who are like us.

I'm really interested to see how this plays out in church planting. We're working to plant churches within existing social structures. People are drawn to others like them, and that's where they are comfortable and have a sense of identity. But I think that's a good thing. Churches should have distinct personalities. The intellectuals meet on Thursdays at lunchtime and pour over theology. The sensitive ones spend a lot more time in worship and prayer than the rest, and are very sensitive to the needs around them. The outgoing and outspoken do a bit more preaching and evangelism, while the social butterflies have lots and lots of fellowships. Who knows? Maybe this would be a healthy alternative to denominationalism.

What if the balance we're so worried about maintaining is kept at the city-wide level as opposed to the local group level? While we cannot tolerate sin, heresy, or disunity, what about diversity in the ways we express our life in Christ?

Even though I use them all the time, I hate post titles that end with a question mark. I guess that's what I get for having a blog that is about asking questions...

My last post, "Adapt, Adopt, Reject," was an outline of a paper that some friends and I came up with. I've had a couple of good responses. I got a few "let me chew on it and get back to you" messages, and I'm sure many of you are still trying to swallow the idea that I would have friends to work with at all.

I'm really interested in looking at Christianity from this perspective: What would our faith look like without the influence of modernism? The more I thought through the paper's outline, the harder it was for me to come up with any modern contributions that we should adopt outright. It's strange to think about, because we interpret everything through the modern worldview. I'm no historian, but I think we could learn a lot about being followers of Jesus in postmodernity by looking at the pre-modern expressions of Christianity.

In his book, Ancient Future Faith, Robert E. Webber gives a helpful outline of "Paradigms Of Church History." He breaks down church history into these worldviews (paradigms):

• Classical Christianity (100-600)
• Medieval Era (600-1500)
• Renaissance/Reformation (1500-1750)
• Modernism (1750-1980)
• Postmodernism (1980- )

As the church moved from one worldview to another, I imagine that there were many Christian leaders that warned against the dangers of the coming worldview. For example, during the rise of the modern worldview, there were probably plenty of godly folks saying things like "Buyeth not into modernism..." or something like that. What would they warn people against? Elevation of logic/human reason? Too great a focus on the individual? The limitations of linear thought?

But here we are, on the tail end of modernism, and the only expression of Christianity that we see is heavily influenced by the modern worldview. We read it into history and revelation. Our understanding of God is a modern one. We study systematic theology, we're used to hearing propositional exposition of the scriptures. We feel this huge need to nail down the specific time and date of our salvation. We use mass-market evangelism. We look for ways to measure our holiness. This is the modern church.

In an online audio chat with Derek Webb, Donald Miller talked about how Jesus gave many different answers to people who asked Him "What must I do to be saved." But modern Christians only have one answer to that question. Why is that?

I don't think that the modern worldview is bad. But I'm certainly weary of anyone who asserts that it is the "Christian" one. I'm interested in discovering and recognizing the influence my worldview has on my faith.

During a recent training seminar, a leader in our region rhetorically asked: "Now, the real question is: can a Postmodern be a Christian?" As a believer who isn't very modern, I wanted to ask: "Can a Modern worldview be compatible with a Christian one?" But it wasn't until Dr. Robertson McQuilkin presented his talk on Postmodernism outlining those elements of postmodernism that we should adopt, what we can adapt, and what we must reject, that I saw a good way to discuss the issue. I've tried to address this before, but some friends pitched in to help this time. What we've come up with is more of an outline than a paper, but it is a work in process. Basically, we'd like to challenge people to stop thinking of the Modern worldview as good or even neutral in terms of it's influence on our faith. Here's what we've got so far:

MODERNISM
Modern tendencies we should ADOPT:
Seek the Source
We should read and know the scriptures and view them as authoritative, true, and beautiful.
If you want to know what someone said about something, the best place to go is to the source. This also follows a biblical means toward resolving personal conflict and sin issues.

Due Diligence
Care should be taken to be sure that no function of the church is overlooked, no member left out, and that we not repeat the mistakes of our those who have gone before us.

Critical Evaluation
The use of plain old common sense still has an important place in following Christ. Scripture tells us not to lean on our own understanding, but doesn't prohibit us using our brains. Genuine critical analysis was deveoped in the modern era, won’t go away any time soon, and can serve us Christ-followers well.

Modern tendencies we should ADAPT:

Utter dependence on logic/reason.
Matters of faith are logical by human standards to the extent to which they “make sense” for the group/individual.
God cannot be proved, contained, or fully defined. But, since He reveals to us His character, He is knowable. We must recognize the beauty of the mystery of God.

Fight for the Faith
Modern Christians often see themselves as “Defenders of the Faith” whose task it is to hunt and expose false doctrine wherever it may be found by exposing its logical inconsistancies, ridiculing it, or personally attacking those who believe it. “Good” theology is revealed by the living and active God and is not such a fragile thing. We should, however, lovingly confront false teachings whenever they come up in our relational sphere of influence. Discipleship and mutual submission/accountability require it.

Absolute Truth
God’s truth (the only truth) is indeed absolute, but our understanding of it is always subject to the limitations of our human perspective. We will never have full and complete knowledge of truth this side of heaven, and we must always recognize that our interpretations are from a limited perspective.

Truth is knowable as a person. Jesus is God revealed to humanity in history, and He continues to be active today.

Labels are helpful. While labels tend to be negative and prone to gross generalizations, they are indespensible for meaningful conversation. If we cannot define what we mean, we cannot communicate anything.

Modern tendencies we should REJECT:

Radical Dichotomies
Faith/Science: Faith should not/does not come into play only at the limitations of science. Science is good for helping humanity learn about the ourselves and our environment. This shoud allow us to be better stewards of the resources God blesses us with.

Christian/NonChristian: The (now global) Christian subculture is an example of the people of God withdrawing from the world and creating their own “safer,” “better,” “God-pleasing” version of it. It is neither “safer” nor “better,” and only serves to remove us from the mission God has commissioned us to.

Good/Evil: The Enemy is not God’s opposite. Fear has no place in the Christian Life. God’s good has/will overcome evil in the world. C.S. Lewis said that “Even the devil is God’s devil.” This leaves a lot for us to work out (i.e.: the problem of evil), but is a more Biblical perspective.

That Faith Requires Religion
Jesus rejected the religious requirements of the Pharisees every time He came across them. Yet moderns tend to replace the child-like faith Jesus talked about with religious traditions. While faith necessarily brings with it good works, Jesus did not come to start a new world religion. The first “Christians” continued to identify with and continue in the Jewish religion. We must recognize that as we mature in Christ there are a) certain things we are compelled to do, b) certain things we are compelled to avoid, and c) things we should continue to do, but with a new, Christian motivation.
Mimicking the World’s Systems
The Church is not a business. To manage it as such is to subjugate it to the world’s standards of success, performance, and relationship. This affects the way we “hire” and “fire” personnel, manage interpersional conflict, and approach the lost people around us.

The Gospel is not just information. There is more to the Good News than the propositional message. The Christian task is more than dissemination of information; it is contextualization, translation, and lifestyle support of the Truest Message of All.

Missions must not be viewed as a finite task, but as an ongoing act of obedience. Years of “what’s it gonna take?” mentality has perpetuated a human-centered, militaristic, utilitarian interpretation of the Great Commission that effectually keeps us one step ahead id the Holy Spirit.
Institutionalization
To many modern thinkers, the church IS the institution we see around us. The goal of the whole Great Commission exercise is to build a better institution which does a better job of getting to gospel out (or of discipling, or raising money, or whatever). Postmoderns would simply rather do these things themselves, organically or in affinity-related groups.

The distance between the scripture and my life is actually quite short: I read the scripture and I obey it. All the better if I can obey it with some others who are willing, like-heearted and (hopefully) fun. There is no reason to make this distance unnecessarily greater by requiring that we build instituions to obey scripture.

Some things work better in instituions: car manufacturing, delivery of gas, electricity and other commodities, surgery (!) all require infrastructure or a controlled environments which necessitates institution.

Relational things, heartfelt things, passionate things don’t institutionalize well. We shouldn’t try.

The “Silver Bullet” mentality
This mentality, rampant in modern thinking and in churches, assumes that when the right formula, combination of factors, leadership or Tipping Point is discovered, success will inevitably result. This thinking, an outworking of modern mechanization, simply deosn’t work in God’s economy. He’s much more concerned about our obedience and our heart for Him than in us finding and practicing the right formula. The only Silver Bullet in following Christ is…well, following Him.

Well, what do you think?

In my last post, I wrote about the resolution to "Develop an exit strategy from public schools" that is being proposed to the Southern Baptist Convention. Since we're trying to put together an effective entrance strategy here in Western Europe (doing the opposite of what the resolution calls for), I've decided to put myself in the shoes of someone back in the states and give some suggestions for engaging our communities through the public school system:

They aren't well-paid. They work long hours, and they are "on call" 24 hours a day. Their impact is great, but they receive little recognition. They share their testimonies and beliefs every chance they get, thought they often deal with strict regulations against openly sharing their faith. I'm not talking about missionaries to far-off places, here; this is the life of your average Christian public school teacher. Which brings me to my first point:

1. Local churches need to start treating public school teachers as missionaries. I mean it. A commissioning service, full prayer support, maybe even some financial assistance. They are doing missions by sharing life with people in natural ways. Everything they teach, every opinion they give is heavily influenced by their relationship with Jesus. We see it so clearly in foreign lands- missionaries in China teaching English classes- but for some reason we put teachers in a different category. They go through culture shock. They have to learn a "foreign" language. They have to be creative, patient, and culturally relevant. It's time we recognize that.

What if, instead of pulling out of the public school system, we pushed our way into it? What if the public school system was flooded with Christian students, teachers, and administrators?

2. We need to start sending teachers into the system. Whenever a young person asks me about becoming a missionary, I always encourage them to look for ways outside the professional missionary system. Having the title "Missionary" brings with it more barriers and obstacles than we often realize. What if we started recruiting, training, and sending young people into the public school system as missionaries to their communities? We send short-term semester and summer missionaries to rough, inner-city areas to minister, why not send qualified teachers into those schools that are desperate for teachers anyway?

3. We need to be intentional about training and sending our children to public schools. What if we trained them, even the young ones, to study the culture of their class at school? What if we prepared them to face the dangers of their particular mission field and helped them get spiritually ready to face each day in that context?

4. Parents must get involved. The public school system began it's sex education program in the fourth grade when I was in public school. My mom went and previewed the films and curriculum, and then made me read a James Dobson book to supplement what was being taught. Ok, so I don't recommend giving kids a James Dobson book, but I think she had the right idea. If parents know what's being taught to their kids, they can counter those worldly things with truth. This way, kids know what the world says, and learn to contrast that with what the Bible says.

But parents aren't only limited to reviewing curriculum. They can join the PTA, be a "Class Mom," or a Teacher's Aid. They can get on all those committees, boosters, clubs, and organizations that actually decide what the public school does. At our local school, there was a PTA committee that decided whether or not a church plant could meet on the campus on Sundays. Parents can even substitute teach. This would extend the parent's influence to reach not only their own kids, but other kids in the community as well.

5. To affect change, service is the answer. We have "work days" at church, why don't local churches organize and sponsor work days at the local public schools? The administrators are always looking for ways to save money. What if some Christians came in and raked leaves or repainted the lockers? Schools always need recess monitors and traffic controllers and crossing guards. A Bible Study group could supply refreshments for the School Board meetings. Doing these things, without expecting special favors in return and without any strings attached, would affect the local public schools for the better. What if the school administrators didn't have to see Christians as their enemies? Wouldn't it be something if, when faced with a need, the principal felt he could call the local church for help?

So I guess what I'm proposing here is that we develop an "entry and engagement strategy" for the public schools. Not so we can make them "Christian," but so we can make to most of this great opportunity we have to interact with and serve our communities. Our involvement is what will help our children. It is being salt and light.

In Western Europe, missionaries develop and implement these sorts of strategies in order to engage their communities and plant churches. We would start here and go even further, looking for those existing entry points into the community and making the most of them. What if the churches that send us were doing the same back home?

Lately I've been accused (and by "I," I mean someone else entirely, but with whom I mostly agree) of wanting to "pick and choose" from contradictory "systems" of belief. The accusation sounded a little bit like this:

"Your concern for social justice is clearly "Social Gospel."
Your anti-death penalty stance is taken from the Liberal's political agenda.
Your references to God's sovereignty in salvation sounds very Calvinistic.
You talk about postmodernism as though you've really bought into all of it.
You quote R-rated movies like someone who is well acquainted with worldly things.
Your environmental concerns put you in the company of hippies and tree-huggers..."

Ok, I'm sure you get the point, but it goes on.

"And all of the above sounds just like that Blue Like Jazz guy, so you're one of those."

Or, even better (worse?):

"You may not recognize it, but I've seen all this before. It's just the same old liberalism dressed up in new, trendy clothes."

Where do we get the idea that everything comes as part of a package? (Ok, so I'm pretty sure I know where we get it, I'm asking for the sake of discussion.) Why do we have to put everything in neat little categories? Even more importantly, why do we assume that belief in one aspect of a system means adherence to the whole thing?

I'm really into the idea of redemption lately. I've seen God take things that were clearly not God-pleasing and turn them into beautiful instruments of praise. To me, that should be our standard for picking and choosing. Environmentalism is good stewardship of creation. I that's a redeeming quality, whether the "issue" is associated with nature-worshippers or not.


Just for fun, here are some more things I believe in. I am:

-Pro-life because I believe that life is sacred. (Not just criminally innocent lives, but all life.)
-Pro-peace, because I am pro-life, and because peace is evidence of the Spirit.
-For engagement of culture, because Jesus' incarnation modeled that for us.
-For immigration, because the places people come from aren't always good places for them to live.
-For church/state separation, because it might not always be "us" in charge.
-For freedom of expression, for the same reason.

I recently attended a conference workshop where the speaker asked a lot of questions. She was talking about postmodernism (yeah, we still have to have the "Postmodernism" talk every time we get together), and sharing from her experience with a postmodern European guy. She presented their interaction as a case study, to illustrate the challenge of cultural translation of the good news. After she told her story she, for the sake of discussion, asked her audience: "So what would you do if you were in my shoes and ministering to this postmodern European guy?"

And then it began.

Instead of taking the speaker's question (she is an excellent communicator, by the way) as a conversation-starter, they heard her asking for advice on how to handle the situation. Never mind the fact that the speaker was asked to speak because of her wisdom and experience in ministry to postmoderns. Never mind that she had already been ministering to this individual for some time. People actually raised their hands and offered their answers to her "problem!"

"Have you tried confronting him about his sin?"
"You should give him a copy of 'Evidence That Demands A Verdict.'"
"I'd move him to the back burner and look for someone more open to the gospel."

I'll admit that I was secretly comforted by the response the speaker received. I've often found myself in the same situation; asking questions to inspire discussion but met with words of advice from an oblivious audience. Until now, I thought it was me.

Now, please don't hear me say that I don't want or need the wisdom of others. I, of all of us, certainly do. But there's something disheartening about interactive discussion being shut down by a know-it-all. More than the answers, I think it's the attitude that ruins things. It's the "I've already got these things figured out. I'll go to the trouble of sharing the solutions with you, but I won't venture to honestly revisit the question." You can almost hear them saying: "Look, I gave you the answer. I solved your problem. If you spend any more time talking about it, you're a fool."

But what that says to people like me (as if there were more than just me) is that the know-it-alls don't really have it figured out at all. They have a working "solution," and either for fear, laziness, or ignorance, won't suffer questioning it again. I never want to be that guy. But for some reason, our subculture often seems to hold "that guy" up as the leader.

I am encouraged, though. It's been a long time since "that guy" has been invited to lead a workshop.

I say, let's ask questions. Even the ones we answered a long time ago. Especially the ones that are scary to ask. Let's, for the sake of discussion, re-ask questions about God and His people from the perspective of know-nothings. I think there's a lot to be learned by asking questions. Don't you?