I Died in Your Arms Tonight

Cheesy eighties song references are a good way to introduce a supernatural experience of the cross, right? That doesn’t cheapen it at all, right?

My wife and I went to the organic church conference in Orlando, led by Frank Viola, Alan Hirsch, Gary Welter and Milt Roderiguez. For the first time in my life, the cross made sense. Christ made his Way through death. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to die. On the contrary, it means we must die, we must be crucified along with our Lord.

So on the drive back my wife fell asleep, and I was meditating on a brief vision I’d had of Christ’s cross. I was on a golden road, and ahead of me was a golden gate set in a white stone wall. On the road, through the gate, on a short hill was the cross.

I was also considering the vastness of the sky, and how it surrounded us on all sides. It struck me as a fine reminder of its Creator. While I was thinking about this, the vision of the cross re-appeared in my mind. This time, just as I considered how the sky encompassed me, I considered my surroundings in the vision.

Behind me now was Christ, urging me forward. He walked me to his cross, which became an altar like the one Abraham almost sacrificed Isaac on. He laid me down, and before I really knew what to expect he drove a knife into my heart.

In my own body – while driving no less – I felt my spirit recede from my extremities, up through my ribs, past my heart, until it left my head and closed around the back of my eyes. My physical body continued, and I had control of it, but at a distance. My body was quite empty.

I thanked God for such a blessed experience, glad and scared all at once. But I knew I was safe. Slowly, like water seeping through a sponge, my spirit returned. Except now it wore my body like clothing, rather than being truly attached. I felt that way throughout the night. The sensation faded after sleep, but the memory remained.

Being separated from my body – my flesh, mind you – was overwhelmingly refreshing. For that brief time, my spirit was cleansed through death. After my spirit had returned, I saw the vision again, except now the cross was behind me and Jesus was ahead of me. We continued on the road together.

I was going to write something completely different, some nagging detail about the veracity of organic and institutional church, but realized how ultimately petty it was. Christ has shown himself to me that I might always remember him and be faithful. What more should I worry about?

Hard-Work Holiness

Have you ever tried to do this? I have. I used to sweat busting butt to try and measure up to what I understood a Christian was supposed to be like. The result was a constant oscillation between good streaks and big dips into sin, with the occasional crash thrown in to shake things up.

The metaphor we use for our holiness is fruits. Working hard at bearing fruit is a pretty silly idea. Did you ever see an orange tree sweat?

So if we aren’t supposed to work hard, what do we do? Isaiah’s got a nice protip (Isaiah 30:15):

In repentence and rest is your salvation,
In quietness  and trust is your strength

Resting and being quiet is the hardest thing to do sometimes, especially if you’re in a spiritual desert. Remember the number one command: love God. Love doesn’t come by hard work, it comes from exploring and enjoying the other.

I’ve found the more I learn to rest, the less dips I have, and the crashes disappear entirely. I’m never perfect of course, but I just press closer to God. Everything else usually falls into place.

Where Faith and Practice Meet

I’ve been engaged in organic church ideas a lot lately, and fairly critical of institutional church forms. I’ve also been involved in transformational ministry in the Presbyterian church. It makes for interesting cross-polination, to say the least.

I’ve had a couple good conversations with a pastor friend who’s congregation is involved in transformation. He’d heard some of what I’d been saying about organic church and was inspired to preach a sermon on the subject, so he invited me. I was very impressed, and wanted to share his core assertion as well as my own views.

The bottom line is Christ.

Throughout the transformation work, the mantra is “deeper in Christ, further with Christ in mission.” It usually focuses on practical problem-solving, but undergirding everything is a push toward a shift in perspective – away from institutional assumptions (or addictions), and toward going deep in Christ personally and mentoring others to do the same.

The organic church also starts with Christ. It’s about focusing solely on Christ, not letting human structures limit how Christ can express himself through a body of believers. It greatly resembles the New Testament churches of the first century – usually in houses, with full and equal participation among members.

I’m heading toward organic church with no apologies. But I also have strong connections to many brothers and sisters within institutional forms who have no desire to leave it behind. My friend’s sermon was pointed – admitting many problems with institutional forms but underscoring the all-important bottom line, Jesus Christ.

I believe the best path is to ignore questions of practice – at least at first. Hold nothing sacred, surrender all on the cross – preferences and qualms alike. When your singular focus is Christ and his mission, practices will fall into place. For me it often means learning to set aside frustrations, so my walk is defined by Christ instead of not-institutional.

We will fall short, of course. We have several guides – the Holy Spirit, scripture, our fellow saints, our conscience. We can’t know the complete truth of God’s design for his Church, but I believe the more we pursue Christ the more we will find ourselves in accord with his ways.

On Love and Prostitutes

When a prostitute falls in love with a client, she can no longer accept money in good conscience from her lover. When the client falls in love with the prostitute, he can no longer pay in good conscience.

Not only can love not be bought, it refuses to be repaid. It is free. It is grace.

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mark 12:28-29

Slavery of Sentiment

Do you have gifts you can’t get rid of, because it would be an offense to the giver? Does your church have a prized stained-glass window in loving memory of some long-gone member’s dead relative so-and-so, and no one would dare consider besmirching their generosity by removing it?

Get rid of it.

Yes, I know we all want to honor our fellows by cherishing their gifts. But these are not truly gifts if we are not allowed to discard them or give them to someone else.

Suppose I meet a homeless man on a park bench and give him ten dollars, and he sets the money down on the bench before leaving. My first reaction is to get offended or disappointed, because the gift was not received in gratitude. I needed his gratitude in exchange for my money. It was not truly a gift, but a purchase.

Without meaning any harm, the givers of these gifts have purchased us into the slavery of sentiment. They expect to be appreciated. They may not care about thank you cards or shout-outs from the pulpit, but they expect folks to be glad to have received.

God knew the kind of reception his Son would receive, and sent him anyway. The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. I daresay Christ knew what kind of a mess we, the church, would be – and he married us anyway. Be glad for grace, and be glad to give, but be beholden only to Christ.

Not Being Fed

Christians often talk about “being fed” or “not being fed” from a worship service. There’s a subtext I always hear in these statements – it’s the leadership’s job to feed me.

Maybe some of these Christians take some active hand in trying to ‘receive’ the spiritual ‘food’ from the leadership, but ultimately if there’s no leaders there’s no food.

Babies need to be fed (or at least provided for). Let’s grow up and pick the fruit of Life ourselves for a change.

What Is Worship For?

The obvious answer – worship is for worshiping God! – is not my answer. Not exactly, anyway. I think the real trouble is we’ve misappropriated the word “worship” to apply to regular church gatherings, of which worship was only part. I’ll keep using “worship” to refer to church gatherings because it’s familiar language, so please just bear that in mind while you read.

I believe there are three distinct kinds of worship we can find in the New Testament. Unfortunately, I find only one – or at best two – in modern churches. We have a lot to learn from our past.

Regular Meetings

We have to start at the regular weekly gathering of the early church, particularly because the other two won’t make sense without this foundation. 1 Corinthians 11-12 give some specific images of these gatherings. They’re small, intimate, and most noted for their participatory nature. Everyone is involved through their gifts to make the concept of a unified Body of Christ a legitimate reality.

The central purpose is expressing Christ as his Body. The main event is the Lord’s Supper, which for them is a genuine feast. Everyone comes together to share the meal equally. The meetings are also marked by a mutual sharing of spiritual gifts. All the believers are gifted, and all are exhorted to use their gifts in the meeting, as led by the Spirit. Paul is clear this shouldn’t be chaos – Christ guides the church in its meeting with unity, as one guides their own body. Sometimes the early churches messed it up, but were always encouraged to continually seek to be more faithful.

This kind of meeting is absent from modern churches, and I mean entirely. There are ways to use one’s spiritual gifts in various ministries, but not in any communal setting like this. If a brother or sister is gifted for teaching, they can either teach a class or (if they’re either clergy or in a particularly open church) preach a sermon. Other gifts, like prophecy or tongues, in these settings would be disruptive.

Preaching

The second kind of worship we can talk about is marked by preaching sermons, large crowds, a mix of believers and non-believers, and (if it’s successful) baptisms. This is most familiar to us, because it looks almost exactly like a modern worship service.

The central purpose here is evangelism. We can see the marked absense of spiritual gifts and sharing. There is generally one preacher talking to a large crowd. While it isn’t described as such, I can easily see other brothers and sisters leading songs or prayers for the group. It’s also likely brothers and sisters were mingling in the crowd, talking one-on-one with non-believers or new converts, praying with them, baptizing them, and connecting them with a local church.

While we see leader-to-audience services with a focus on teaching the gospel, there’s usually a greater expectation that members attend than newcomers. Not that visitors aren’t welcome, but they’re only part of the puzzle. Members going deep in faith – however that happens at each church – are expected to get their primary spiritual experience from what is intended as a sort of newcomer’s seminar.

Church Planting

The last kind of worship gathering is when an apostle is planting a church. The church isn’t ready to be led exclusively by the Spirit, so an apostle mentors them – usually for a handful of months – in functioning properly. The work is never truly completed, as the epistles show us, because the apostle continues communication and coaching in Body life. However, a point always comes when a church is mature enough to function independently, without constant supervision.

The central purpose here is discipleship. Newly converted Christians are guided into the full experience of Christ’s church through his Spirit. They find their gifts, learn to express them in an orderly, Spirit-led way, and comprehend living Christ as a group instead of as an individual. They are also taught in how to live all of their lives in Christ, how to serve the poor, and how to spread the faith and make more disciples.

This kind of meeting happens in some modern churches, but not all. In the ones it happens in, one or more facets are still missing. It’s usually done as a small group ministry, but may be a bible study, outreach or service mission, or membership class. Small group ministry is most akin, and most effective, as a small group can practically function as an early house church. The trouble is, there’s never a separation from apostolic leadership. The church is never allowed to truly mature and grow up; they’re trapped as spiritual children, or perhaps even teenagers.

The Full Measure of Christ

We’ve lost focus on why we do the things we do, what the purpose is. All three kinds of gatherings are vital to the whole church, but church leadership needs to reclaim the apostolic traditions of evangelism and planting. We also need to acknowledge each other’s spiritual gifts, and create space for their proper use.

Spiritual matters don’t come naturally to our sinful flesh, which is why it takes time to learn. Since the apostolic traditions are so lost among most of our churches, it will be a messy process.

I don’t want to discourage anyone reading this, especially those part of an institutional church. I believe we are a long way off, but rather than condemn I want to help shed light on the Way of Christ. We Christians have a long and famous history of making mistakes. Rather than fall prey to guilt, instead we must affix fresh eyes on Christ. His Spirit is a guide to us, guiding us ever closer. There are small steps you can take at your own church now to pursue Body life. Seek them out always, and pray in the Spirit constantly.

What I Have Known

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. (I Corinthians 13:12)

I’ve known a lot of things in my life (I’m speaking about God here). Once, shortly after a prophetic revelation during my agnostic years, I randomly opened a bible and stumbled into I Corinthians 13. I don’t advocate the randomly-open-a-bible method of seeking the mind of God, but this time at least something came of it.

The words quoted above have stuck with me. To think how much more someone in the bible must surely know! Compared to me, quite a lot, and yet they are keenly aware of their present ignorance.

There’s a secret hope tucked away in those verses, though. Face to face, as I have been fully known. The hairs on my head have been numbered in heaven, as have yours. How fully then will we come to know our Lord in that place?

I don’t discount what I have known, because (I believe) each fragment is like a hair on the head of Christ. I simply must remember how few of them I’ve been privvy to, and both yearn for more and rest in knowing I have all eternity to search his depths and mysteries.

Yearn and rest. I hope you can do the same.

The Death (and Resurrection?) of the Mentor

Most of us grew up in the modern era, which is now coming to an end. Modernity was defined by the Industrial Age. The “first world” modeled the machine as the new paradigm. Society was a large, complex system composed of interlocking smaller systems which could each be broken down into a hierarchy of parts down to people, the cogs of the social engine.

Machines are factory-built, so education came to resemble an assembly line. Move from grade to grade at the correct rate, taking the required courses, until you were a perfectly interchangable widget. From there you might go to be specialized in college, but you’d gotten all the essentials to “fit in” by high school.

The problem I came to realize (and I think most folks in my generation are with me) is I have little idea how to really live, or even how that’s different than filling a role.

We’re heading into the “postmodern” era, which is defined by the network. Finding a specific role is akin to locating an electron’s position. The cubicle walls, white picket fences, and any other traditionally modern boundaries are crumbling in exchange for hive-like interconnectivity and mutual participation.

The problem is, while there are still valuable skills like reading or math, our challenge isn’t proficiency but wisdom. This was the job of mentors. Unfortunately, in the modern era this was a colossal waste of resources. Machines need uniformity, but organisms need heterogeneity.

I’m struggling with these issues now because of my daughter, who will eventually need some kind of formal education. I feel let down by mine. There were mentor figures to me, but our time was always brief, constrained by pre-ordained seasons.

I suspect as the Industrial Age continues to give way to the Information Age, we’ll see a return to education-by-mentor. Apprenticeships will be far more valuable than undergraduate programs. There’s still the issue of elementary and high school. To my mind, the necessary academics could be condensed to a handful of years. Specialization is far more valuable in the postmodern era than ubiquity.

The same dynamics are playing out in the church. The modern era saw a one-size-fits-all worship format. Each church was essentially the same as each other. Membership was defined by performing the pre-defined tasks (giving money, volunteering, serving committees) to keep the machine running. Each person’s unique gifts were irrelevant to these chores, as basically anyone could perform them.

Now I think we return to the Apostolic Age, where mature Christians will coach new brethren in the Way, instead of content Christians recruiting brethren to membership.

A Love of Life

I love the lyrics to the song “T.S.R.” by punk band Against Me. I doubt there was any Christian intention when it was written, but in a pagan world of multiple-choice religion I think it’s a cry for meaning that can only truly be answered by Jesus Christ. To me, it strikes a chord of - while drowning in sin - struggling desperately to reach up.

Here’s a portion of the lyrics:

I hope my body can take it;
I hope I make the occasion.
It’s only this fucked up I start realizing
All this living is just dying,

And if these are my friends, if this is my home,
If this is how I spend my nights,
How I communicate and demonstrate
A love of life,

My eyes roll in to the back of my head.
If these are the last words that I ever said,
No, I’m not ready to die just yet.

Who are your companions?
Where is your heart’s home?
How do you spend your nights?
How do you communicate and demonstrate a love of life in Christ?

You can listen to complete the song on Last.fm.