Purpose

Tuesday 31 March 2015

What does it mean to be Church?

To ask "what does it mean to be church?" is similar to the question "what binds people together in groups of all sorts?" This binding together would include teams, gangs, clubs, mobs, families and congregations. There is surely no simple answer to it; communities are as different as individuals from one another. But the question is "is the church of the same genre as other communities or is it an entirely different kind of gathering altogether?

What drives communities and forms their understanding of how members should live?
   
Imagine there is no heaven
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you will join us
And the world will be as one

An iconic ballad from the 70th in which John Lennon imagined a better world, one without the evil of war, injustice, strife, apartheid, inequality, violence and pain as he saw in this world. He and million others yearned for a world that “will be as one” in peace, equality and justice, for a “brotherhood of man,” an end of greed and hunger, for people to share all the world in peace and harmony. A time of rest for all, shalom in full and every divide overcome including selfish and otherworldly religions that promote or sanction violence and degradation of the others be it because of their gender or other
differences, the end of the weapons race and a structure of revenge.

Lennon and millions of others recognized that if this dream is to become a reality in this world, it cannot remain in mere words and ideas. In order to become reality it must leave the lecture halls, and libraries, it must be made reality within a community, a company of people who not only imagine but put into reality, willing to embody and direct their lives by this “imagine,” by this “dream.”
Through his song he invited others to embrace his dream and the company of those who lived it grow. This company of people of which John is but one is a “come-and-join-us” group, who, by their words and lives, offer a radical but attractive alternative to the violent, greedy, and self-centred culture around them.

But with the distance of time we realize that Lennon’s song was but a dream.


The problem is not that we do not dream of better, or that better is not possible, but rather that injustice, selfishness and anger are lodged so deeply in the inner crannies of our hearts and minds. For all our good intention, brokenness and selfishness, emotions we deeply abhor, are as deeply rooted in our hearts as they are in the systems and structures we have surrounded us with.

When Paul wrote. “Do not be conformed to this world, but continuously be transformed by the renewing of your minds . . .” (ISV) he was probably referring to the same system of values, allurements John Lennon dreamed of to overcome. And while there are many similarities between the dream and the Gospel, the gathered company of people was indifferent or ignorant toward God and His plan. And so Paul warns his fellow Christians not to allow the subtle pressures of the world to conform them to their utopia, an echo chamber of paradise without God.

I think that is an ever present problem we face in one form or the other. The allure of being accepted and admired by people who surround us possesses a powerful gravitational pull, the same is true of people we admire. We need to watch ourselves carefully and examine why we change views.
And so the question, “what causes us to conform,” is important to ask. According to Bill Hull; “Life and even some research demonstrate that people conform when there is more gain from conforming than from not conforming. This is no truer than when it comes down to being a follower of Christ. The reward for religious conformity is the acceptance by your faith community. When you gather together, there is edification, comfort, and encouragement.”

However, for many years good-hearted Christians were convinced that true spirituality is keeping a set of rules and to separate themselves from the very people they are called to love and to reach. The entire idea of Jesus coming into the world and living among us, of His kingdom narrative about wheat and weeds existing side by side, his prayer in John 17, all make the point that we must live among those who do not believe. Others therefore, almost in protest separated from what they saw as easy-to-mock caricature of Christianity, fueled by the desire to be relevant moved in the very opposite direction but losing on the way distinctive differences to make a difference.
Here to be relevant meant that someone or something becomes what it needs to be in order to meet a need. That need, particularly being an obvious need may change from culture to culture, situation to situation, person to person. The desire to be relevant is normal and pays off in much off life. An irony, relevance itself is relative. Food is relevant to a hungry person, cloth to a naked one, but what if food and cloth have been distributed? Temporary relevance rides the winds of change and blows from any direction. The only reliable relevance is finding ways of expressing how the other person’s life is relevant to God, loved by God, and that does not change. The only true relevance is found in the Eternal, and then we will find what we are seeking shalom.
 
The dogma, the very purpose of the church, therefore, is to go into the world, just as Jesus did, to show love to the unlovable, the rejected, the misused, the suffering. In reality, however, our practice has been to separate where sharing life actually would matter. The irony is, that we have separated
ourselves, having our own buildings like schools, camps, churches, even senior homes and our own church friends while being void of “normal” friends, all the while we share the worlds drive for success and for running our own lives.

What I am trying to say is this; We all conform somewhere except in ways that cost us less. We all face the daily reality that non-Christians don’t, it usually has to do with making a living. It comes down to what is the best deal right now. Therefore, let us make sure that our conformity is to the person of Christ, and not to some form of culturalized Christian living. We all are being called to be transformed to Christ, not some form of religious subculture. That transformation will bring with it some form of stigma and sacrifice we tend to avoid, but can’t. The transformation we are called to is different to the conforming to a particular cultural Christianity, which might just be another form of ending up being conformed to the ways and values of the world, gaining in this life more from conforming to godly people than from not conforming. Being conformed into Christ is not about behaviour modification, conformity to Christ is not separation nor is it moralism.

What or better who drives communities and forms their understanding of how members should live?
be the church  

Thursday 26 March 2015

The term of office of the Church



The term of office of the Church is to love God with all its heart, strength and mind and to love others like herself.

It is the mission of the Church to be a healthy church within the reach of all people,


•   by way of interpreting life through intentional reflection on the life of Christ,
   in the course of deliberate living a life of hospitality and reconciliation,

   through maturing congregations from first to last,
  • discipleship through intentional mentoring and teaching
•   commissioning prepared people to purposeful service,
  • within
  • outside
•   investing human and financial resources purposefully,
  • remembering that the church exist for the sake of others
•   communicate and celebrate through listening to and loving one another, and
•  finding continuously  new ways to connect unreached people with the gospel and us.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Persons
  • All persons are made uniquely in the image of God and possess intrinsic worth.
  • All persons have a need to know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord.
  • All persons can be saved and begin a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
  • All persons have unique gifts to contribute to the kingdom.

Church
  • The Church family is the foundation for the growth of the Kingdom of God on earth.
  • The Church family is the primary context for developing believers.
  • The Church family is to minister in Jesus' name to all people.
  • The Church family is to worship and serve God.
  • The Church is God’s primary instrument used to showcase His character of love and distribute His free grace to a dying world. 
    • You and I are living in that dying world while at the same time living in the kingdom of God.

Team
  • Teamwork demonstrates and necessitates the diversity of spiritual gifts and personal competencies within the family of God.
  • Teamwork recognizes our dependence on God and each other.
  • Teamwork maximizes the leadership resources of the church.
  • Teamwork builds healthy inter-congregational community.
  • Teamwork affirms the gift of one another.
  • Teamwork appreciates diverse approaches and expression to accomplish our common vision and mission.

Love
  • Unconditional love is grounded in the character of God.
  • Unconditional love establishes a framework for all relationships.
  • Unconditional love guides all strategies, actions and programs.
  • Unconditional love ensures the appropriate understanding of the other, of time, money, and energy.

Learning
  • Lifelong learning affirms the mystery of God
  • Lifelong learning happens only intentionally 
  • Lifelong learning prevents judgmentalism
  • Lifelong learning leads to growth.
  • Lifelong learning leads to creativity.
  • Lifelong learning leads to greater faithfulness to biblical essentials.
  • Lifelong learning increases competence.

Growth
  • Scripture calls for every church to grow.
  • Scripture calls for the evangelization of the unreached.
  • Scripture calls for loving others.
  • Scripture calls for every Christian to grow in grace and knowledge of Christ.
  • Scripture calls for every Christian to participate in the growth of the church.

Generosity
  • God is generous to all. Becoming more like Him, we extend God's love through generosity to others.
  • Generosity is grace-enabled as we trust God in all circumstances.
  • Generosity is a source of joy and blessing as we join God in His ministry.
  • Generosity glorifies God and affirms Him as creator of everything.

Friday 13 March 2015

Unity of understanding to create unity of action.

The basic meaning for the manipulation of reality is the manipulation of words. If you can control the meaning of words, you can control the people who must use the words.
Philip K. Dyck

An unsettling thought indeed and there are good reason for not dismissing this thought outright particularly when we look at the word tolerance.  


The greatest hermeneutic of the gospel is a community that seeks to live by it.
Lesslie Newbigin
 
The headlines presented to us through media are filled with ethical, moral, and social issues. They fill a wide spectrum from employment equity to the right to choose, sexual orientation, gender identity, physician assisted suicide or abortion. And in so doing they inform our thinking about these and more issues, and the courts in recent decisions reflecting these changes in thinking. One of these changes is the believe or unbelieve for that matter in ultimate and universal truth.

Society believes, or say it believes, that all people have a right to their own opinion -- and there are those who hold that some opinions are better than others. That is to be expected. For once, we have all different values, outlook of  life, cultural upbringing, to name just a few components that play a role in our development of opinions. However, we have often difficulties to listen honestly and carefully to each others point of view. The reason for that is in my view that we often arrived at an understanding without really understanding the why, why we hold that particular opinion. After all, rather than being rational we are emotional beings that arrive at lives decisions, values and opinions not after a lengthy time of reflection. And therefore, on both side of a debate about anything, we tend to want our cake and eat it too.

What does that all mean in practice to us today? I must say, I am not really sure all that it means to the Church in practice at this moment. However, it should be clear that the changes in media and court decisions will further highlight the clear riff between the underlying foundation of society at large and the church. To begin, however, it clearly means this: We, the followers of Christ, have been utterly foolish in our concentration on trying to segregate from one another because of different opinions in our systematic theologies. That excluding behaviour has broken down the truth in bits and pieces and has taken away from the big picture. This inadvertently pointed to a problem in the theology of love, as some regard "Christianity" and their own denomination's name and particulars to be synonyms. This has not only taken our focus from making disciples of Christ but also to a complete failure to face the total world view that informs our daily life decisions. Rather than addressing the foundation that brings us together into conflict with the world, we have opt for the easy way out and are holding small inhouse debates, "trying" to convert one another. And in so doing we effectively failed to witness to the truth that Jesus was sent.

We have not understood that different world views, being accountable to someone other or not, will effect the totality of all bits and pieces and inevitably brings forth totally different results in life, cf. abortions. I don't think that is nowhere more obvious than in media and law -- where a different world view with its bits and pieces is almost forced into our thinking.    

Unfortunately, many believe or at least act today as if rational, emotionless discussions about different opinions, resulting from a different world view, have no place in the public realm since all answers are based on personal opinions.  We are increasingly taught, we are simply stuck with our different opinions and that all opinions are relative -- having no basis in any objective or unchanging moral truth. Therefore, anything which presents or argues from an absolute truth position is quite rightly seen to be a total denial of a relative position and can't be allowed. In some respect, both positions is an exclusivist one, and at least on an intellectual level intolerant when it presents itself exclusively through political or legal institutions. Tolerance, once expressed as respecting others' right to hold differing perspectives, has morphed into a pervasive insistence that no one should hold firm convictions.But we need to be honest, the history of the church is full of intolerance.

What is truth? 

"What is truth?" retorted Pilate. With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. The NIV translation, perhaps unintentionally, points to a believe of relativism of morality and truth by Pilate. And that should be expected, because the politic of Rom was if not to respect but at least to tolerate local religious believes, it kept the peace. Perhaps skeptical that any are true, he also observe that religions brought a sense of purpose, comfort, stability, and security to people's lives. He too might regard religious diversity as a positive force bringing social stability and cohesiveness within the realm of the empire. Thus, he might be religiously tolerant. In this sense we may want to accuse him to have a relative view of truth, a view that is so prevalent in our society today. What is truth? This today fundamental question was not meant to be answered. It was not an inquire from someone seeking after truth, but rather a rhetorical question. For Pilate was really saying, you have no basis or right to make moral judgements about individuals and their actions or about society at large. Who are you to judge? Who are you to judge me, Jesus or the procedure that will follow?

The question about the foundation of life is a serious one, and is raised in one form or the other by many people in our contemporary society. It is serious because Pilate suggest relativism, and here particularly moral relativism, whereas Jesus calls attention to himself; "I am the truth,..." With whom do we side? The view when it comes to moral issues there is no universally objective right or wrong in any given situation, or with Jesus? Are we going with; What is in the interest of the majority, what is in the interest of peace for the majority? A sentiment we find in Caiaphas; "it's better one man should die for the people." That is not to say than humankind is not intrinsically unselfish, corrupted only by outward circumstances and influences. No, we are fallen and not fully what we were created to be. The question simply is; who is going to be the judge on the bench?

It is true, we are all socialized from such an early age and to such an extend that it is very difficult to separate what is cultural from what is personal. We cannot deny it, we are to a large degree the product of our upbringing with its surrounding cultural influences. That position is not particularly easy for some people to take. However it is essential if religious peace is to be maintained in Canada where religious diversity is rapidly increasing. In some cases, tolerance can simply be a result of a lack of religious convictions -- i.e. lack of discipleship or a byproduct of indifference. Some Christians may have few or no strong religious convictions of their own. They will probably be quite tolerant of other people's beliefs in the sense that hey simply don't care what others or they themselves believe.  
There, therefore, can be neither inappropriate or appropriate judgement, and no reasonable or rational ways to make moral judgements that would apply in every time, in every place, in every culture, and to every person? Really?
At the same time, we need to admit that today's western societies have become largely areligious while coming from a Christian background which nonetheless informed their values.  

What is truth? This question unanswered leads to the danger of moral relativism at which end only subjective opinions and personal preferences exist, no different from one's feeling about capital punishment, female circumcision or the preferred ice-cream flavour, or hockey player.
We are all socialized from such an early age and to such a great extent that it can be very hard to separate what is cultural from what is - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/headscarves-and-men-holding-hands-coming-out-as-a-cultural-relativist/#sthash.6CGkF9ho.dpuf

When we look into the development, the unfolding of the story, relativism simply doesn't carry enough bit to save tolerance, or the individual. What we rather detect is a kind of ambiguity or different self-interests that lead to injustice. The authority of power to judge (Pilate) was no exercised because of situational self-interests, but also the want of the majority. Therefore, although Jesus was pronounced innocent according to the opinion of Pilate, he got executed in a method that was otherwise chiefly inflicted on slaves or the worst kind of criminals. On one hand the by the Jewish law required stoning for blasphemy did not take place yet consideration was given to the Sabbath law. We see and find ourselves in a climate of inconsistency, contradiction, cohesion and self-interests, little has changed. And around and around we go in this regressive spiral where we find ourselves sacrificing today not Christ but tolerance in the name of exclusivity be it relativism or absolutism.

The problem we face than and today is that moral relativism doesn't protect tolerance since anyone can choose to value mutual tolerance or not. After all, there can't be any reasons for preferring one set of values over another, except mine because they suite me best. But tolerance or to tolerate proper understood is nothing more than to put up with, conditionally, with a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one's own. But that requires that we actually have strong convictions ourselves, rather than lose opinions.

Tolerance, I believe is the underlying current in what the New Testament presents to us. However, neither tolerance nor permissiveness toward an action frees us from providing an alternative response in love. Tolerance is not indifference. True tolerance means taking our deeply held convictions seriously because understanding and sharing our differences actually makes a difference. Disagreements matter. True tolerance means engaging one another with love and respect despite our differences. We need a recovery of a biblical expression of tolerance, insisting that the existence of disparate views even and perhaps more important among Christians is vastly different from the acceptance of all views being equally valid. Tolerance understood in this way is not really an abstract, personified ideal, but has always been, although in a subtle way a dominant part of the early witness of the church. Intolerance, if we want to call it that way, was exercised within the small confinement of a local church addressing sin rather than differences of religious opinions and values. Tolerance in love, however, is vital to the life of the church even if only for the weaker brothers and sisters.

"I would like to speak up for the tolerance which arises from respect for the inherent worth of people -- tolerance which is not indifferent to the choices people make, the principles they live by, but accepts their right to make their own choices. This tolerance is not an easy indifference but a difficult balance between a passionate conviction in the worth of one's own cause, a compelling necessity to convert others, and the fearsome risk of being converted oneself. It is sustained not by an arrogant indifference to how life is lived but by a humble assertion of the worth and dignity of every person." 
We are all socialized from such an early age and to such a great extent that it can be very hard to separate what is cultural from what is - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/headscarves-and-men-holding-hands-coming-out-as-a-cultural-relativist/#sthash.6CGkF9ho.dpuf
Richard R. Rathbone
Moral relativism doesn’t require any sort of policy on tolerance since anyone can simply chose to value tolerance or not and furthermore there can’t be any reasons for preferring one set of value claims to another (except maybe “my value claims are better because they are mine”) - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/comment-of-the-day/moral-relativism-vs-cultural-relativism/#sthash.cezak8Jk.dpuf

Moral relativism doesn’t require any sort of policy on tolerance since anyone can simply chose to value tolerance or not and furthermore there can’t be any reasons for preferring one set of value claims to another (except maybe “my value claims are better because they are mine”). - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/comment-of-the-day/moral-relativism-vs-cultural-relativism/#sthash.cezak8Jk.dpuf
.

Moral relativism doesn’t require any sort of policy on tolerance since anyone can simply chose to value tolerance or not and furthermore there can’t be any reasons for preferring one set of value claims to another (except maybe “my value claims are better because they are mine”) - See more at: http://goodmenproject.com/comment-of-the-day/moral-relativism-vs-cultural-relativism/#sthash.cezak8Jk.dpuf