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Becoming a Good “Missions Church,” pt. 3 – Integrate & Mind the Goose

March 11, 2011 by Mark Woodward

World_face_north_america

Third in a series of guests posts from Tim Spivey, senior minister of New Vintage Church (San Diego, CA).

Today’s post offers some relatively blunt observations regarding the relative strength of a church and it’s ability to be a good “missions church.” I offer these with redemptive intent–wanting churches to become all God wants them to be.

  • My experience is that struggling churches struggle for good reasons. It usually has something to do with leadership issues, and those issues by nature permeate all aspects of the church. It’s important for the sake of missionaries these issues are dealt with. Typically (though not always), churches will do mission work with the same level of health and excellence they do local ministry. Bad local ministry, bad missions ministry. If they don’t show care for what is happening locally, they typically won’t care about what God’s doing half a world away. This is another reason to pay attention to local ministry…it buoys the eventual effectiveness of whatever happens overseas.
  • A lack of well-formed theology and ecclesiology manifests itself in silo thinking. In this mindset, church-planting, benevolence, global missions, local ministry, campus ministry, etc…are all completely different ministries needing their own advocates at the church leadership table. In this way of thinking, each ministry is separate and altogether disconnected. The silo mentality is one of the great enemies of global missions ministry and healthy ministry. The church is a Body, and each part is connected. Both practically and theologically, when all parts are working together for the common good of the Body according to their place, the church grows in unity, vibrancy, and effectiveness. We cannot just report on missions. Biblical teaching on the church, ministry and the nature of evangelism is an important part of becoming a good missions church.
  • Integrated ministry recognizes the symbiotic relationship between all ministries of the church. It leverages the strengths of all for the sake of all. This why effective global mission requires more ingenuity, a strong focus on integration with the ministries of the whole church and less initial funding than one might think.
  • Most churches still view “successful” mission works as those they have supported for many years…regardless of their effectiveness or the real impact of continual support for decades. This way of looking at missions bottlenecks resources at a national level and tends to build co-dependent relationships between congregations and mission points. Relationally, it’s wonderful to continue to support a particular work. However, the relationship can continue regardless of support…as a parent doesn’t cut off relationship with a child once they leave the house. It’s important that mission efforts become self-supporting after some reasonable period of time–for their good and that of the supporting congregation.
  • Here is a difficult one. Struggling churches usually have declining budgets as well. They often will only cut missions as a last resort and will thus kill the proverbial “goose” by first slashing local ministries, cutting salaries, etc. in draconian fashion–which often means more decline, which means less revenue, which means more cuts, etc. This is a noble impulse, but HUGE mistake. Sometimes this must happen–but not usually. More on that in another post. For now, I would recommend cutting what isn’t working wherever it’s located and moving the resources to where the most good for the Kingdom can be accomplished. That’s a delicate process of discernment…but a necessary one.
  • If the “goose” continues to be plucked or starved, at some point, the ministers of the church come to view missions as a competitor rather than an ally in what God’s doing in the church. This is never good…and isn’t necessarily all the minister’s fault. The minister may fear blame for the church’s decline when he or she didn’t have much to do with it–they simply had the ball taken out of their hands. The ministers need to be strong allies in building a vibrant global missions ministry. In fact, I would start building buy-in with them first.

Which brings me to the next posts in this series: Concrete steps to improve both your church and the church’s global mission efforts.

I would enjoy hearing to what extent to you believe world missions is separate or different from other ministries of the church? Why?

 

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Becoming a Good “Missions Church,” pt. 2 – Become a Good Church

March 10, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Part Two in the guest series by Tim Spivey, Senior Minister of New Vintage Church (San Diego, CA)

 

Step one in becoming a good “missions church” is becoming a good church. I don’t mean churches should take care of themselves first, so to speak. I mean that true global vision emerges from an awareness of what God is doing everyday locally. Good churches have embraced God’s vision for reaching their community through them. This initiates a “flat earth” theology–in which God cares about all people, not just the people in my community. I have yet to see this work in reverse. Churches don’t usually come to believe, “Well if he cares about people in Africa, I bet He may even care about people here in Plano.” It usually goes the opposite way.

Embracing local evangelism is like learning the alphabet when it comes to becoming a globally conscious, “missions church.” If we don’t care about the people next door, we probably don’t care about the lost in Indonesia that much either. I’m not saying we don’t feel guilt about the lost in Indonesia. I’m saying we don’t really care about them the way God would want us to.

I’m defining “good church” (though I prefer “great”) theologically by its faithfulness to Christ and His mission. “Good church” practically means healthy and at least moderately effective in reaching its own community. You don’t have to be big to be a great church. But, being a good church is usually a prerequisite for building a strong missions ministry over time. As I said,  good “missions” churches have what God is doing globally in their DNA and awareness…not just in their budget. Many churches who give a high percentage of money to global missions don’t really care much about it.

Becoming a good “missions church” is actually quite similar to becoming a “good church,” because good churches think globally. Thinking globally, however, doesn’t make you a good church.

When a church is truly struggling, it can be difficult to build enthusiasm for visionary ministry abroad. Why? Sadly, the scarcity mentality embeds itself in the church psyche like a tick. It’s fair to say that sometimes new ventures abroad can defibrillate a dying congregation. Odds are, such ministries will never get the chance. The church can only think of survival. They cannot imagine new initiatives–like a family on the verge of bankruptcy has difficulty envisioning their dream home. If you’re in a church like this, trying to get buy-in from leadership on continuing to grow in global mission will be exhausting and depressing.

So, don’t.

Yet.

A more effective overall approach to the problem is to stay vigilant about local ministry while casting global ministry as akin to it–an extension of it. It’s all evangelism. God cares about all people. Global missions are not more important than local mission. It’s a vital part of being a Kingdom Church. Big difference. A healthy local ministry will allow for the funding, vision and “want to” for new global initiatives. It rarely works in reverse. Maybe it should. But, it usually doesn’t.

Do you agree?

Posted in Christian Missions, Church Leadership, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment »

Becoming a Good “Missions Church,” Part 1

March 9, 2011 by Mark Woodward

I’m proud to share with you a short series of guest posts by Tim Spivey, senior minister for New Vintage Church in Rancho Bernardo, CA –and my son-in-law! I know you will appreciate his perspective.

MissionsI presented a session at the Global Missions Conference in Arlington, Texas a couple of years ago on “Becoming a Good Missions Church.” I’ve decided to post some of the material from that class here along with some new perspectives, because it’s an issue churches continue to face. Many churches want to spend less on themselves and more on others, or they want to be more effective in how they do global missions with the money they have.

In the dozens of churches I’ve consulted with or served in ministry at, there have only been a couple I can recall that spent less than 10% of their annual budget on global mission efforts, including domestic church planting efforts and exclusive of benevolence spending. Some spent as high as 65%. That’s an extremely high number in comparison with national norms–and a number that isn’t healthy for reasons I’ll describe in this series.

Percentage of budget does not an evangelistic church make. Think about your personal finances as an example: most of the money God provides us personally is spent on purchasing food, paying rent/mortgage payments, utilities, etc. That doesn’t mean I’m more passionate about utilities than about the Kingdom. It just is what it is. Similarly, some churches think becoming a good “missions church” (a term well worth deconstructing) is basically devoting an ever-increasing portion of their budget to global evangelism. While that is a noble impulse, it isn’t equivalent to becoming a strong “missions church.” Here are just a few reasons why:

  • Many of the churches that spend high percentages of their budget on missions pay little attention or care to the works they support. This is also observable in relative congregational ambivalence toward global mission efforts.
  • Many “missions churches” support works for decades and develop a co-dependent relationship on the works they support. While the fellowship aspect of this model is a blessing, overall, this way of doing missions weakens both the church and ministry they support.
  • Many so-called “missions churches” are relatively inept at local evangelism and subconsciously use missions as an “out-sourcing” of evangelism– which they understand is a clear Gospel mandate. While this is better than doing nothing…a church of 100 that spends 60% of its budget overseas and didn’t baptize a single person last year should pause and consider the purpose of its own existence.

Tomorrow, we begin a new blog series on this subject–much of which can also be applied to benevolence spending as well.

Step 1 in becoming a good missions church is becoming a good church. To that we’ll turn tomorrow.

You can find a link to Tim’s blog site in the righthand column! MW

 

Posted in Christian Missions, Church Leadership | 1 Comment »

March Madness a la Gkids Basketball!

March 7, 2011 by Mark Woodward

I’ve always been a fan of All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum because of the simplicity of his insights. Part of what he says is that it is never too late to start learning what we should have learned in kindergarten!

This last Saturday, I spent part of the day going to two basketball games: Carter (6) played at 9:00 in a league tournament, and Kellan (8) played his final season game against a team that had not lost in two years—according to him!

Youth basketball has some different rules which help the kids not only enjoy playing more, but gives them a chance to learn parts of the game that they otherwise might be tempted to ignore or leap over for the sake of a quick win, but at the expense of developing proper techniques and skills.

I was just thinking this morning that we could all learn something from youth basketball’s adaptation of the these rules.

  1. Youth players must pass at least once before anyone on the team attempts a shot. I’m sure the intent is to keep one dominant player from “hotdogging,” that is, taking the ball from one end of the court to the other and not using the other team members. For us grownup players, however, it is a good reminder that team play is a better strategy. A player who won’t pass the ball thinks too highly of himself.
  2. No more than one defensive player is allowed to guard the opponent with the ball. There is no worse feeling than being outnumbered and surrounded by opponents! That threatening sense of impending loss that makes your stomach churn when called to account before a panel or when two or three scowling colleagues enter your office at the same time—our experiences are bad if cornered!  Few people survive being ganged up on without feeling the need to fight back—fairly or unfairly!
  3. Defensive players may not guard the offensive players as long as the ball is in the backcourt. For young players who don’t dribble well, who can’t run and dribble at the same time, they need a chance to get started before they face the opposition, so this rule awards them half the court without interference. Young people, young Christians, young marrieds, young students, young employees often need the same kind of gracious allowance. Give them a chance to learn to run and dribble at the same time.
  4. Referees are not required to blow the whistle on every foul or penalty. Especially in the six-year-old league, the boys sometimes run five or six steps with the ball before they dribble; they start and stop their dribble, they commit backcourt violations—just all kinds of rules are flagrantly broken—most to which the boys are quite oblivious!  The referees see the violations, but they do not call them every time; in fact, really only the most flagrant violations get the whistle.

This drives the parents crazy! The parents are screaming “double dribble,” three-second violation,” “illegal screen,” – I haven’t heard “goaltending” yet, but almost everything else. The referees who graciously overlook the violations of the kids have to put up with parents who did not learn anything in kindergarten, I’m afraid!!

 

So, I spent a couple of hours with the grandkids and learned to be gracious, to pass the ball and be a team player, but not to gang up on people and not to blow the whistle every time someone commits an offense.

Even granddads can be schooled!

By the way, Carter lost his game pretty badly, but afterwards he really didn’t even remember the score. Kellan’s team beat the previously undefeated team with a long shot in the last ten seconds of the game.

They both got trophies!

 

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Review of “The Adjustment Bureau”

March 5, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Since we are big Matt Damon fans and since there have been no good releases for months, Sherrylee and I were really looking forward to The Adjustment Bureau which opened in our area tonight. We were disappointed. The acting is not bad, the special effects barely special enough to be noticed, and the dialogue worked ok, but the film overall was too big an idea for too little a movie.

I won’t spoil it for you, but even from the trailers you can figure out that the plot revolves around a young politician David Norris (Matt Damon) who falls in love with a ballerina (Natalie Cook).  Because a continued romance is not part of “The Plan,” a squad of men in hats starts intervening in their lives to make sure they never meet again.

Inadvertently the adjustments are messed up, the couple meets again “accidentally,” and the rest of the story is about their trying to find each other, hold on to each other, and ultimately choose each other–or not.

The film is a fairly inane romance, wrapped in a very artificial theological cloak! It’s not as if the questions of free will and/or determinism are not almost a standard part of cinema’s repertoire.. Some recent similarly romantic films that you might remember are Serendipity (2001), and 500 Days of Summer (2009).

In fact, manipulating reality is the essence of the cinematic art, so choices—or non-choices—which are also choices—or to place it in theological terms, free will or determinism–are not far removed from any film’s narrative—in the same way free will and/or determinism lie embedded in every human action’s cause and effect.  But, now I’m getting deeper than the film deserves.

If you want to test the theological prowess of your date for this movie, you might try the following questions!!

1.The Adjustment Bureau assumes that the Chairman’s plan is not comprehensive. In other words, some things are directed to happen according to the plan, but other things just happen by accident.  Can free will and determinism exist in the same world side by side?

2. Is David Norris’ choice of submitting to The Plan the same as the biblical choice of submitting to the will of God?

3. “The Chairman” seems to have the obedience of his staff, but what seems to be lacking in them is any sense of relationship, anything resembling faith, trust, or love.  How do these emotions change the debate between free will and determinism?

4. Multiple plans seem to exist as if the Chairman’s plan is based on current knowledge and contemporary events. Many Christians have this same view of God’s involvement in the world, i.e., that He limits his foreknowledge to the present and limits his actions to that which is solicited prayerfully by his people.  Are there really many different outcomes possible to human history?

5. The final message seems to be that the goal of the whole Bureau, from top to bottom, is to educate the human race to make good choices. Once people learn to make good choices, then the need for determined direction becomes moot.  Do you find this to be a Christian viewpoint?

That’s all the space this film deserves.  It’s not a bad date movie. But if you are easily irritated by faulty theology or shallow philosophy, maybe you ought to read a good book instead!

 

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A Missional Day in the Life of A Dental Hygienist

March 3, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Our children all married well–wonderful, thoughtful Christian spouses. Today I want to introduce you to Amber Rogers Woodward, Ben’s wife. She is a dental hygienist, a mother of three, and much more. She has a great blog about her family mostly, but a couple of days ago, she posted the following vignettes from her life that blew me away.

I had just been at a conference where the word missional was used thousands of times, often in an attempt to define it. Here, I thought, is what missional looks like in the real world. Missional is a Christian woman, listening at the right time, naturally talking about her faith at the right moment, a woman who is in tune with what God is doing and does not live in the false dichotomy of a life in the church building and another out.

I have to share this with you–with her permission, of course. I believe you will be inspired as I was.

Every day I have patients that AMAZE me with their stories of faith, struggles, fear, and joy.  I know I say this every time…but I never quite get use to the fact that I have such a unique job position that drops me into people’s lives, literally face-to-face:), to be a sound board for each of them. Hearing my patients stories  over the last 10 years has truly changed my life in SO many ways!  So every so often  I like to write a few of them down…to remember…and to share with whoever is reading this:).

Mr. J.  and I were talking about the fact that he use to smoke, how he quit 2 years ago, and how he managed to quit.  He was kind of ho-humming around about how he quit…I kept pressing  him saying, “I’ve heard it’s really difficult to quit…you just quit…no medication or anything?”  Finally he began to tell me his story.  He started by saying, “Let me preface this story by the fact that I am not all that spiritual…I believe in God…but I don’t really go to church anywhere…I’m a really good person…but just really haven’t had the time to look into church stuff.  So I had tried to quit smoking numerous times in my life…I tried everything…hypnosis…medication…cold-turkey…none of it had worked.  One day I literally decided that I could never do this on my own.  I got down on my knees one night before bed and I prayed to God to take this desire away from me…that I was giving up total control…and I needed His help.  When I stood up, I can’t explain it, but I knew I would NEVER touch a cigarette again.  I just felt different.”   I was telling him how great that story was and how neat it is that God chose that particular way to show Himself to him…when he tells me, “I know that God has WAY more important things to do in the world than care about my desire to quit smoking, yet I can’t explain it, that is exactly what happened!” Of course that led to a great discussion on how God cares about every little desire of your heart because he LOVES YOU!!!”     I smiled all the way home thinking about how Awesome God is to show that big burly man that he cares about every little desire…if you surrender it to His Will!

This next patient, 60 yo female,  I had not seen before.  She doesn’t come in all that regularly.  I had seen in her chart that her husband had died about 6 months ago.  While I was cleaning her teeth we were talking about her husband, life, etc.  I had seen on her chart that she had been diagnosed with sleep apnea and  so I asked her if she was sleeping with a machine to help at night.  She was telling me that it was uncomfortable and noisy and that ever since her husband had died she had not worn it.  So we kept talking, I was encouraging her to wear it, and I told her about my dad having had it and that he passed away at the age of 40!  I got up to go get some x-rays and as I was sitting back down to finish cleaning her teeth she looked at me with big tears in her eyes and said, “I think you are an angel that God sent to me today to tell me your story of your dad.  I’ll be honest I have stopped wearing it, because I want to die, and I feel like that would be the easiest way to go…just go to sleep one night and not wake up!  Because of our conversation today I promise you that I will never go another night without wearing it!”   I really do not even have words to describe how I felt…we talked a little while longer…she left…and I was in AWE of the conversation we had just had!  WOW!!

This next patient I had seen a few times before and I knew that her daughter was expecting twins any day.  So she came in to get her teeth cleaned and I was asking her about the babies.  She told me that about 4 months prior they had discovered in an ultrasound a large mass on one of the babies tailbone…and that they were told that it meant she would be born with spina bifida.  Her daughter had delivered the babies a couple of weeks prior and discovered that the mass was only a cyst…it was removed…and she is perfectly healthy now.  She was talking about how they had been praying for the mildest form of spina bifida to be the outcome.  What she said next was such a good reminder for me…she said, “I can’t believe that we didn’t have enough FAITH to pray that there would be NO spina bifida…we just believed the doctors…they said they were 99% sure!”  This was such a good reminder for me to have enough faith to be BOLD in my prayer life…that ANYTHING is possible with God!

See more of Amber’s posts at her blog site. You can get to it in the Blog list in the right column on this page.

Posted in Christian Culture, Uncategorized | Tagged | 3 Comments »

Rob Bell versus Jonathan Edwards ?

March 1, 2011 by Mark Woodward

An electrifying, unconventional pastor whom Time magazine calls “a singular rock star in the church world,” Rob Bell is the most vibrant, central religious leader of the millennial generation. Now, in Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, Bell addresses one of the most controversial issues of faith—the afterlife—arguing that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering. With searing insight, Bell puts hell on trial, and his message is decidedly optimistic—eternal life doesn’t start when we die; it starts right now. And ultimately, Love Wins.

This product description, probably provided by Rob Bell’s publisher, has started a Tunisia reaction on Twitter and in the evangelical Christian world.

Until Bell’s book is out and his own remarks can be viewed in context, I’m not too interested in jumping into that fray.  What concerns me more is how many Christians seem to hold to principles of universalism or act according to such principles without any awareness of their own misunderstandings whatsoever.

If Rob Bell comes out definitively for universal salvation, then he is only another reflection of the times we live in. Rarely, if ever, does one hear any of the following words in Christian assemblies:  Hell, Satan, Devil, eternal punishment, the Lost.

Even in Bible-believing churches we have sugar-coated these words, preferring to speak of evil, separation, seekers, unchurched—if we reference such things at all.

I can understand a rationale for controlling the offensiveness of our public conversation, but is it possible that by removing these words from our common vocabulary that we have been naïvely, but dangerously covering up the horrible truths that those words represent.

You’ve probably heard of Jonathan Edwards’ famous sermon called Sinners In the Hands of An Angry God. Look at the points he made:

  1. God may cast wicked men into hell at any given moment.
  2. The Wicked deserve to be cast into hell. Divine justice does not prevent God from destroying the Wicked at any moment.
  3. The Wicked, at this moment, suffer under God’s condemnation to Hell.
  4. The Wicked, on earth – at this very moment – suffer the torments of Hell. The Wicked must not think, simply because they are not physically in Hell, that God (in Whose hand the Wicked now reside) is not – at this very moment – as angry with them as He is with those miserable creatures He is now tormenting in hell, and who – at this very moment – do feel and bear the fierceness of His wrath.
  5. At any moment God shall permit him, Satan stands ready to fall upon the Wicked and seize them as his own.
  6. If it were not for God’s restraints, there are, in the souls of wicked men, hellish principles reigning which, presently, would kindle and flame out into hellfire.
  7. Simply because there are not visible means of death before them, at any given moment, the Wicked should not, therefore, feel secure.
  8. Simply because it is natural to care for oneself or to think that others may care for them, men should not think themselves safe from God’s wrath.
  9. All that wicked men may do to save themselves from Hell’s pains shall afford them nothing if they continue to reject Christ.
  10. God has never promised to save us from Hell, except for those contained in Christ through the covenant of Grace.—from  Wikipedia

I find myself shocked at the unmitigated declarations of these contentions! Not a word of mercy! Not a gracious note!  But after you get over the shock of reading such inflammatory rhetoric, ask yourself which of these ten principles is not true!

Probably either you agree in principle with all ten—or you are so reviled by them that you didn’t even finish reading the list. If you are a Christian and were reviled, then I have to pose these questions for you to think about?

1.            Do we now believe that people cannot be lost? We have spent a great deal of energy convincing a generation that grew up with hell-raising sermons that they can be saved by God’s grace. Have we, however, failed to preach the full gospel that also says, “ . . . and he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

2.            Do we still believe in guilt which is the God-given consequence of sin? Jesus did say, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains” (John 9:41).

3.            Do we truly believe that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus (John 14:6)?

4.            Do we believe that people are either slaves to sin or slaves to God (Romans 6) and that there is no other alternative?

5.            Do we really believe in sin? And do we believe that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)?

Even as I write these things, I’m tempted to just hit Delete and not pursue this—it is particularly disturbing—even painful.  But perhaps it should be more disturbing to me that I do not shudder when reminded of the wrath of God or that I  feel no visceral relief that I have been saved from the wrath of God (Romans 5:9).

If we believe there is no sin, no guilt, no hell, then will we ever cry over Jerusalem as Jesus did? Will we go to our cross? Will we completely surrender?

We dare not anesthetize our theology nor our language, but especially not our hearts, against the evil of sin, nor the pain of guilt, nor the darkness of hell, lest we find ourselves in a place where we no longer fear the Lord!

 

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Do We Have the Right to Shop for Churches?

February 28, 2011 by Mark Woodward

In exploring the very important question of Christian unity, I keep asking myself how Jesus really wants us to be ONE.  What does this Divine Desire for unity look like in our world?  And what keeps us from achieving this unity?

I fear that one answer to this last question might be that we live in such an individualistic, consumer-oriented society that the right to shop is considered God-given.  I know this from personal experience.

Sherrylee and I have left two churches and thought we might have to leave another. Two of these churches we had a hand in starting and were certainly part of the core group. In the third church we were very common members.

Church number three was a good, traditional church, full of wonderful people; Sherrylee and I were continually irritated, however, by what we thought was a bureaucratic though benevolent leadership and shallow preaching. We left peaceably when the opportunity presented itself to start the perfect church with a like-minded group of friends.

Church number two felt like the perfect church, just what we wanted church to be: close, intimate fellowship, challenging teaching where any question could be raised and seriously addressed, and communal worship that visibly flowed from heart to heart in songs and prayers that felt holy rather than enthusiastic.

In spite of many years in that community of believers, Sherrylee and I left that church because we had lost confidence in their commitment to core Christian beliefs that we held to be essential and because we ourselves had lost the confidence and trust of the church leaders in this tension.

We did not leave the first day we noticed these losses. No, for several years we tried to re-direct and lead the church along a different path, but when we felt we had lost our voice and even the goodwill of the community, we left.

This congregation continues to exist, and I want to be clear that my description of how we believed it was many years ago is not a statement of how the current community is or what they believe and practice.  Neither we nor they were as perfect as we wanted to be!

Church number one is really the one I want to focus on in this post because with this particular group of Christians, I learned lessons that continue to challenge my understanding of Christian unity.

In 1973, Sherrylee and I along with two other couples moved to Hannover, Germany, in order to plant a new church (to use a jargon that belongs to the current generation).  Planting a church is an extraordinary experience that challenges the essence of your faith. It draws on all of your experiences as a Christian as well as all you have learned, and it defies formulas and templates, so you are forced into arenas that you never knew existed.

(Wow! I just realized as I wrote that sentence how attractive that whole list is to me. Makes me want to do it again!)

Here are a few of the lessons I learned in Hannover about church unity

  • We really don’t have an inalienable right to choose with whom we worship. We had one older German couple that were “old German”—meaning that their norms for propriety were from their generation, not those of the younger people in our age group. They were constantly being offended, but they desperately needed the Lord! On many days they were an irritant in our small community of believers—but God had brought them there. We did not have the right to choose to divorce them or ignore them; our only choice was to love them, so we learned to love rather than leave—and became a little more like Jesus because of them.
  • What is “lively” to one person is “deadly” to another even within the same community. The first wave of what we today call praise music was big in the States in the 70s, especially among campus ministries. Since Sherrylee and I had been at Ole Miss prior to going to Germany, we were familiar and in tune with this new music. You can imagine our enthusiasm for translating and introducing it to our fresh, new community in Hannover. What could be livelier?? Except that it was not their music. As in any group, some people liked anything new and different, but others needed the continuity of familiar German hymns. There was no option about having a “worship war,” so we had to learn  not only to respect each other, but to worship together in unity of spirit—and the style became secondary to the love that required.
  • Those least like you may become those most like you. Hannover is in northern Germany which is historically protestant. Southern Germany is much more Roman Catholic. We began our mission in southern Germany, but expected when we moved to Hannover that receptivity would be greater in northern Germany among the protestants with which we had more in common.  We were completely wrong!

What we had yet to learn was that the modern German protestant is far removed from the theology of Luther. In fact, Protestantism in Germany only has vestiges of Christian faith remaining. Most pastors do not believe in the resurrection of the dead, do not believe in eternal life, and do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God. I’m sure there are some clergy who do—and certainly many of their members—but as a whole, we found the protestant church in Germany then to be post-Christian.

You can imagine our surprise as we discovered that we had much more in common with the Catholic church than with the Protestant.  We had been raised to understand Catholics as much farther removed from the presence of God than Protestants. But Catholics firmly believe in the Lordship of Jesus, in his death and resurrection, in eternal life, in the inspired Scriptures, in prayer, communion, baptism, and so much more that we share.

If unity is based at all on likemindedness, if unity is based at all on speaking the same thing, then we had much more unity with Roman Catholics than we had with German Protestants.  In fact, many of those who joined our little community of faith came from Catholic backgrounds and probably joined us, not as a repudiation of their past, but as their own attempt to draw even closer to God.

So, as you can probably tell, I really don’t believe that we have the inalienable right to casually shop!  At best, the opportunity to shop is a luxury of the rich who live among many, many stores!

I do believe that belonging to a community requires commitment and part of every real commitment is being able to trust that you will not abandon those to whom you have committed.

God hates divorce! I believe that He hates that which creates Disunity, that which destroys committed relationships—including church fellowship.

But I’m still working on what that means.  So I’m thankful for His grace and mercy that heals brokenness!

 

 

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When Do You Leave Your Church?

February 24, 2011 by Mark Woodward

When is your church so corrupt, or powerless, or meaningless, or empty, or anything—that you can no longer stay? When must you break fellowship, disregard leadership, and abandon community? Or is there never an excusable time or situation?

I’m reading Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas right now and thoroughly enjoying it although occasionally the writing style is too colloquial for me. Occasionally I feel that his research is too apparent—or maybe I have just read too many freshmen research papers and have been “overexposed. ”

Right now I’m reading through the time in the 1930s when Bonhoeffer and his colleagues in the German Protestant church are being forced to choose between Hitler’s perversion of Christianity and what they know to be true faith. Some quite faithful pastors are very hesitant to leave their national church, while others—like Bonhoeffer—see early that there is no alternative but to leave.

Bonhoeffer’s situation is perhaps different from where we might find ourselves in that he must deal with a national organization, whereas, we most often think only of leaving congregations. And yet as I write those words,  I think of the growing number of members of churches of Christ who are leaving the heritage of their youth for everything from orthodoxy to Pentecostalism—but mostly just for what they perceive to be a lively fellowship versus a dying fellowship.

In several conversations recently, Sherrylee and I have posed the following question for ourselves: if we had been common members of the church in 1517 in Wittenberg, would we have left our church to follow Luther’s teachings? Or would we have stayed and tried to preserve the unity of believers—which Luther actually did as well until he was excommunicated by his church.

Does Jesus’ prayer for unity among his followers mean anything to us today? I know we all believe it does, but we have a terrible time defining that unity. Jesus described a united fellowship as built from all who “believe in me” (John 17:20), all who are “in us” (v.21), and all who have received His “glory” (v.22). These transcendent terms sound neither like the basis of fellowship nor like the points of contention that cause people to break fellowship today to me.

Luther’s breach was within the existing church until he was cast out as an outlaw. Even then he himself did not establish a new fellowship. The political and social environment of the time forced people to choose whether they would be Lutheran or Catholic—not God.

Bonhoeffer saw the German state church turned into an arm of a godless political machine. Jesus left the state church, so Bonhoeffer did as well. He followed Jesus—and so should we.

Has Jesus left your church? If so, you should leave too! Have you been excommunicated because of your testimony—officially or unofficially?  Then you have really no choice but to find a new community.

I truly wonder though if my personal preferences, my personal irritations, my personal opinions are any reason at all to leave my church?

I suspect that the part of Jesus’ prayer for unity that is mine to fulfill compels me/requires me to subordinate the petty rests of what are mine to the greater goal of the Greater Unity.

How do you participate in Jesus’ prayer for unity among His disciples?

 

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Sherrylee’s Birthday!

February 21, 2011 by Mark Woodward

Today is Sherrylee’s birthday. I won’t tell you which one, but she would!  All I will say is that she was barely 19 when we married which will be 40 years ago in April!

In the last three posts, I’ve spent a little time talking about people who I’ve learned from through recent experience, so surely you are expecting me to tell you about Sherrylee!

First of all, to answer the most frequent of all questions: she likes her unusual name and uses the full thing in any formal situation, whether written or orally. Now her family calls her Sherry, so that’s what I usually call her too, unless I’m introducing her to other people.  She’s fine with both, but I just thought I’d get that question out of the way!

I actually woke up this morning thinking about how to tell you what I’ve learned from Sherry. As in any marriage, most of what you learn is so intrinsic to your personalities that it is hard to separate out into simple categories, but the more I thought about it, the one thing that recurs most often in what I have learned from Sherry, the one word that seemed to be a part of every descriptive phrase that occurred to me, that word was PASSION.

I grew up in a family that was all about subduing emotions and keeping passion under control. If you got too loud or too rowdy or too opinionated or too enthusiastic, you might . . . . surface! Or somebody might misunderstand you, or you might upset someone, or you might do something that was out of bounds.  You might sin! In retrospect, I would say there was a good bit of fear of some kind that ruled all of our emotions and/or actions. I’m not talking about paranoia; I’m just talking about “self-control.”

Her fearlessness was part of what attracted me to Sherrylee!  I was a senior at Harding and she was a junior in high school the first time we met. I was five years older at a time in life when that could be pretty intimidating to some people—but not to Sherrylee. She was not intimidated in the least! She was not afraid.  I’ll never forget the day in Scranton, PA on Campaigns Northeast when she arrived a little late to the team devotional. I was sitting on the front row of the church building by myself. We had just barely begun to know that we liked each other, and she marched down to the front of the building in front of the whole group to sit with me—as if we belonged together! You could hear the gasps literally—but I loved it—and her!

Sherrylee has taught me how to be passionate about people! Just a couple of days ago, we were walking back to our hotel in New Orleans about 10:30 at night when we walked past this young man in a mardi gras costume who was obviously very drunk. He was cursing into his phone very loudly and trying to tell someone where to pick him up off the streets—without success.  We walked about 20 feet past him, when Sherrylee turned to me and said “We need to help that guy!” So we turned around and went back—which we do fairly often nowadays. I walked up and asked if we could help him—that’s the way I am. Sherrylee came right behind me, said, “Let me have your phone and I’ll tell them where you are.” She took his phone, talked to his mother, and gave her directions to pick up her son.  I love Sherry for being so sensitive and yet so bold about helping others. I’m trying to learn more from her.

Sherrylee has taught me to be passionate in marriage! No, this won’t be X-rated because I’m not talking any more about sex than I am about our daily life together.  I think I could have been the kind of husband that loved his wife, but neglected her in ministry. From Day One of our marriage, Sherry has fought that tendency in me. She has passionately pursued me; she passionately pursued ministry with me! And I know that much of her motivation for doing so was so that we did not lose the passionate love with which we began our marriage!  I love her for that!

Sherrylee has taught me to be more passionate about God! When we were first married, I may have had a slight edge on her since I had majored in Bible and had four years of studying the Bible with people and two years of campus ministry, BUT I knew when I married Sherrylee that she had a great mind, an unlimited intellectual curiosity, and a deep and passionate love of God.

She is the one now who reads the N.T. Wright tomes! She is the one who still raises the deepest questions at the dinner table.  In fact, it is a standing tradition among our grown children to bet on how long we will be at table before Mom raises a deep theological question that she has been thinking about!

Sherrylee has taught me about passionate people who love God. She often raises her hands in praise; she often tears up with passion during worship. She prays earnestly—and often. She claps—loudly—and with extra rhythms! She wants to be in the front of the church, in the middle of the worship, talking afterwards to as many people as possible!

I have had so much to learn! And still do. She still teaches me daily not to be afraid, to forget about myself, and to let my deeper feelings show.

Happy birthday, Sherrylee! You have filled my life—and the lives of many, many people–with passion that is clearly the reflection of God’s passionate love for you.

 

 

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