Sunday Morning

One of the many things we're praying about in this transition to Louisville is church. This morning, we loaded up and visited Highview Baptist Church's East Campus. Their facility is beautiful -- one of Highview's six locations. Pretty impressive. Bible study was good, music was good (even if a little polished for me), message was good (the youth pastor from the original Fegenbush campus preached today).

One thing you ought to check out is Highview's new website. I think they've done a great job providing an entry for visitors and one for members. The visitors site -- the one I checked out -- answers the questions we were asking.

More later about our praying -- do we attend a strong established church or a smaller struggling church? Do we try to start a new church, a simple church, or a network? Oh la la...

What I'll Miss the Most

I was going to wait a couple of days to write this entry, but the impending termination of our internet service dictates otherwise. Tomorrow night is the last meeting of our partage biblique (Bible study) for the year, and our last before our long stateside assignment. This group, this gathering, is what I will miss the most while we are in the U.S.

For 1 1/2 years, this group of 17-22 adults and children have gathered once a month for fellowship in the classic French fashion. Everyone brings one or two or three dishes, puts them in the middle of a table, and we pass them around and eat for three hours. This group is where I really learned the bisou, and where I really learned what it means to love French people. And to be loved by them. I will miss this fellowship of young and old, American and French.

For 1 1/2 years, this group has gathered for worship. One of our men -- a true Frenchman from a Catholic background he can't quite part with -- plays the piano while we sing songs from old French hymnbooks and new translated choruses. Some raise their hands and sing, some just listen. Either way, it's worship, and I love it. I will miss Robert singing and playing the guitar, seeing N. raise her aged hands in praise, and French songs that now mean as much to me as "Amazing Grace" and "Victory in Jesus."

For 1 1/2 years, this group has gathered to read and share from God's Word. Most of the group are non-believers. Some got their first Bible at this study and started reading it as a result of hearing their friends share the power of the Scripture. They found that the Bible was much more than an antique book of stories, but is rather a powerful and applicable source of Truth. We go around the circle every month (again, in classic French fashion) and everyone shares their insights or thoughts on the passage we studied. Sometimes, it's some strange stuff, but most of the time I am touched by the way the Holy Spirit teaches from inspired Scripture. I will miss the way the Bible (especially Acts!) comes alive every month when we gather.

For 1 1/2 years, this group has grown together. J. and G. and E. are all closer to recognizing Christ than they were a year ago. Every month, we see them draw nearer to the cross. L. has all kinds of philosophical arguments, but he also has found the comfort of the Scriptures and the Body in the midst of troubles. I have grown, too. God has humbled me over and over, reminding me that it's probably not the missionary who has the most to say. The Father has taught me what the church really is. I am going to miss seeing the Holy Spirit gather the Father's sheep into His fold.

I have shared in other places how hard it has been to plant a church in France. This group is not yet a church, but it's close. As close as any of us has been to starting a church in a long time. Now, we're headed back for the States for a season, leaving them to continue without us. Continue they will, because the group is not us. We are part of the group, the group is part of us, but it will go on without us. These folks laugh and cry, they are patient with my terrible French mistakes and still care about what I have to say.

I've been studying 1 Thessalonians for a message I'll preach this Sunday. Paul loved that church. In chapter 2, he says, "having been taken away from you for a short while -- in person, not in spirit -- were all the more eager with great desire to see your face. For we wanted to be with you..." (v. 17-18, NASB). He missed that church.

I think I'm getting ready to know how he felt.

Good Wine

As for the formality of religious service, however, the hypocrite often outdoes the sincere Christian. Of all people he may be called a "master of ceremonies" because he tries to entertain God with his tongue and knee, with only words and outward ceremony. Yet God looks on the heart. If the wine is good a man can drink it from a plain wooden cup. But if a goblet is wonderfully gilded, but has no wine in it, the host mocks his guest by offering it to him.

-William Gurnall (The Christian in Complete Armour: Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare, ed. James S. Bell, Jr.)

A message for us

A message from David Hesselgrave's Scripture and Strategy: The Use of the Bible in Postmodern Church and Mission for all of us who work to share the gospel and plant churches, especially in our region and our organization:

Let it be crystal clear that this is not written as an indictment of any of these methodologies. Of course, some are superior to others. but all have made important contributions. Some still do and will continue to do so in the future. The weakness revealed by this history is not so much that this or that evangelistic method is mistaken or misguided. The weakness is that this or that method is so readily transmuted into an overall strategy for world evangelization. The weakness is not so much in the method as it is in our penchant for oversimplification and faddishness in embracing one method or partial strategy after another as an 'end-all' strategy. It is that faddishness that has caused church and mission leaders in the Third World to come to the place where they view American proposals and programs with a good deal of suspicion. There is indeed one way of coming to salvation, but there are many ways of contributing to world evangelization. That is the lesson to be learned from the experience of the recent past. (89)

It's not just a problem in the Third World.

When the body hurts

From time to time on this so-called blog I have reflected on the church. I have lived the last four years of my life trying to figure out what the church is, what part I have in it, and how to plant one in a culture that doesn't really want me to do that. I've started several "series" of posts on the church and managed to finish zero. Oh well.

This weekend, I learned something important about the church as "the body." In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul says that "if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it (26-27). We are parts of a body, the church. And when one part hurts, all of it hurts. It doesn't matter whether I'm a foot or a finger, when I hurt, all the body hurts.

Friday night, my buddy Jeff Mathews died. Jeff and his wife, Sylvia, and their little boy, Levi, are part of Smyrna Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, Tennessee, where I was a deacon, a youth worker, a music minister, and then pastor. Jeff and I were ordained together as deacons, sang in the choir together, and even played a little music as part of the much-celebrated "Four Amigos" of Annual Church Picnic fame. He was only a couple of years older than me, but was full of joy and wisdom and kindness and all the things you want as a member of the body. When this young buck pastor stepped over his bounds, Jeff had the amazing gift of bringing together older deacons and younger members. His smile and easy manner could bring peace to a tense situation. Everybody loved Jeff Mathews.

Then, four years ago, we left Smyrna Baptist Church of Chapel Hill, Tennessee, to come to France. Jeff and I have probably talked a couple of times since then for maybe half an hour total. But when we got the news about him Saturday morning, our hearts broke. Even after four years away, we hurt like we were there, and because we weren't there. Right now, as I'm writing this, they're having Jeff's funeral near Smyrna Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, Tennessee, then he'll be buried in the cemetery right out the front driveway, down the road to the right, and down about a quarter mile from Smyrna Baptist Church of Chapel Hill, Tennessee. Many of my friends are gathered together, probably pretty crowded in the chapel, where they're singing and remembering.

And I'm thousands of miles away. When one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.

Here in Paris, France, I got out my Ivan Parker southern gospel CD and listened to "Gone" and "Beulah Land" and "Because He Lives." I read 1 Corinthians 12 and Psalm 23 and some other passages that comfort me. And I remembered, too.

Because the body is the body, and we are its members. That's the church.

A Sabbath Day

Today, I had a sabbath.

Not that I intended it that way. This morning was worship with the church at Rosny-sous-Bois. After a quick lunch, Jeffrey had a fencing tournament, then another hour of praise at the church. Any other Sunday, we would have worshiped together with others in our home. Sunday is a busy day.

On the way home from church, though, I had a flat tire. Normally, this wouldn't be a big deal because we have a full-size spare. But the spare was already on because of the flat tire I had yesterday on the way to the grocery store. So, two flat tires on Sunday means no car. So, we stayed home.

I tried to do a little work -- just emails and such. But there haven't been any emails all weekend. I tried to read some of my seminar reading, but just couldn't get my mind on it. So, I piddled a little here and a little there. I watched a bloopers show with the boys. I took a half-hour nap. I studied up a little on the new nutrition guidelines from the French government then fixed mushroom omelets with extra butter. This blog post is the first "work" I've done all day, and you can tell I'm not working too hard on that.

Jesus was walking through some grain fields one day with his friends. For a snack, they began to pluck the heads of grain from their stalks. Some pharisees saw them and questioned their devotion and commitment. Jesus told them a story about how David went into God's house and took the bread there, ate it, and even shared it with his friends. Then Jesus (I imagine) looked over the fields, then at his friends, and said, "the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath" (Mark 2:23-28).

Today, I had a day of rest. God made it just for me, whether I meant for it to be that way or not. And I'm thankful.

Theology, Methodology, Ecclesiology, Oh my!

As I was preparing to write more about J.D. Payne's article on ecclesiology and church planting, I decided to check out an article he refers to in the first few paragraphs. In the April 1998 edition of Evangelical Missions Quarterly, Tom Julien, of Grace Brethren International Ministries, addressed the question, "what is a local church?" Going further, he distinguished between the essence of the church as revealed in the New Testament and the expression of the church in cultures. The gist of his argument is that church planters must distill the essence of the church in order to plant a culturally appropriate expression of the church. Dr. Payne agrees, saying that ecclesiology, our theology of the church, is the "most critical issue in church planting today."

As I was thinking about all this, I was also involved in an online discussion for one of my doctoral seminars on the emerging church movement. We were talking about whether the "conversation" is more about theology or methodology (maybe I can tell you more about that discussion and its origins in the future). I suggested an article that I found through Joe Thorn's blog: Mark DeVine's discussion of the emerging church movement and Southern Baptists. In that article, DeVine says that leader "Scot McKnight insists that the movement is about ecclesiology, not theology."

But what is ecclesiology if not theology? My classmate Lloyd caught that contradiction immediately. Certainly, our ecclesiology plays itself out in our methodology, and our methodology reveals our theology. Can those be separated? If you add our emphasis on strategy to the mix, things really get interesting. Does our strategy, which includes our methodology, line up with our theology, especially our ecclesiology? Maybe it does, but I'm not sure.

I want to work on these questions, though maybe with fewer words ending in "-gy." We'll see where it goes.

The CHURCH in Church Planting

Church planters must take the time to search the Scriptures to answer the question, "What is the church?" Since the scriptures do not bow to the gods of this age, for some church planters this process will be painful, requiring them to surrender their visions, dreams, passions, desires, finances, and prestige that have developed over the years from Western cultural definitions and expectations for what constitutes a "healthy" church.

This brief excerpt from Dr. J.D. Payne's paper, "Ecclesiology: The Most Critical Issue in Church Planting Today," (available here) expresses well some of my concerns over our efforts to plant churches. I'll comment more on Dr. Payne's article later, but I have often written that our time in Western Europe has done much to strip away our "visions, dreams, passions, desires, finances [oh, yeah], and prestige" and give us a fresh, clean, simple, and, I believe, biblical idea that answers the question, "What is the church?"

Contextualized Strategy

In his latest post over at Crushed Leviathan, Pêcheur comments on the "visible church." Though it's not the overall intent of his writing, he raises an interesting issue concerning our "strategy" for planting churches in Western Europe. Pêcheur writes,

In the Western world (Europe and America), to ask some to stop going to church (building) on Sunday is asking too much from them and they can turn you off. What you have is not "church" to them, no matter how innovative you believe yourself to be. On the other hand, there are some who are wanting some freedom from, what they perceive as restrictions (or even negative experiences) that come from a church structure (i.e. building, clergy, etc), that they will embrace a non-traditional understanding of "church."

I agree completely with his thoughts that we cannot forsake the "traditional church" in the name of innovation or creativity. Neither can we condemn the "contemporary" (or whatever you might call that which is not "traditional") for its leaders' efforts to engage culture. It takes both. Determining what "type" of church to plant is part of the hard work of missions, whether in the US or overseas.

Ten years ago, our organization adopted a worldwide strategy called "New Directions." You can read about it in Jerry Rankin's book, To the Ends of the Earth, so I won't go into great detail about it here. Part of that strategy is the concept of "church planting movements." We as workers in our agency, are to be about facilitating CPMs. I'm fine with that. I think it's a great general strategy for our organization. But it's just that: a general, worldwide strategy. It is our guide, our goal, and it provides some parameters for our work.

Here's the issue: its application in the context of Western Europe. The number one task of what we do is contextualization. We work hard to understand the culture where we live and to contextualize our communication of the gospel. We try every day to shed our own cultural baggage and biases in order to be a light to the world. New Directions, with its emphasis on church planting movements, is great. But it has been poorly applied in our context. We have neglected the first rule of missions and applied techniques and practices from another culture to another without considering how it fits.

In the far east, where CPMs were first identified, they were based on house churches. Men and women much smarter than me analyzed and determined some of the characteristics of these movements, and those characteristics were embodied perfectly in the house church movement. Someone decided that we ought to plant house churches in France and Western Europe just like they plant them in China. We were told to read books about house churches (even some books by Europeans and Westerners), we were taught about house churches in our orientation, and we practiced house church meetings. We were told not to go to an established church because it would confuse those who were watching.

The problem (for me, at least) is not house church. I agree with many of the fundamental principles and consider them biblical (simplicity, community, lay leadership, relationship, etc.). The problem is applying the form in this context. Small groups meeting in homes work here because people are committed to relationships and are perfectly willing to have people into their homes. As Pêcheur points out, however, it is a tremendous cultural hurdle when you call your house a church. The small home groups work alongside the larger corporate worship. They provide the community and the relationship. So, what do we do? We apply the principles in the culture and that's contextualization. That's what we ought to be doing, but infatuation with the latest fads of church planting or evangelism or whatever have distracted us. I'll be the first to admit that the difficulty of living and working here, the lack of visible fruit, can easily cause one to grasp anything that might "work," but we often pay by making our task even more difficult.

When I was in Tennessee, I saw churches split because preachers applied the model of Saddleback or Willow Creek indiscriminately and uncritically to their location. They did not take just the principles of purpose-driven, they tried to be a little Rick and do California music and wear Hawaiian shirts (that's an exaggeration to make the point). In Western Europe, we can start reproducing "traditional churches" that reach people, and we can start reproducing "simple" or "organic" or "contemporary" churches that reach people. Whatever we do, we've got to contextualize strategy and do something.

To my knowledge, there has not been a church started in France by our organization since New Directions (though I'd be ecstatic to be proved wrong on that). Other organizations have started churches, in some cases many churches. Could it be that we have cared more about implementing strategy than about fulfilling our commission?

Talking about the church

My friend over at Crushed Leviathan is starting a series of posts on the church. Since I've been trying off and on to do that, I'll join him by responding to his thoughts and adding my own. He's a sharp guy, so it should be enjoyable (for me at least).

Authenticity

From Emerging Churches, by Gibbs & Bolger:

"Often, congregations and groups that are preoccupied with being relevant lose their authenticity in the attempt." (181)

Together

A long time ago, I promised some of my thoughts on the church. I mentioned that during our time in France, God had stripped away many of the things I saw as important. I still want to keep that promise, but it's a big task that I want to do right.

Until then, here's the last paragraph of a paper I just submitted for a seminar at Southern (edited a little for this blog). I had to write a description of the characteristics of the early church as recorded in Acts. Maybe this paragraph will give you something of an idea of what God has taught me. Just in case, the key word is together...

"The twenty-first century church has much to learn from the first-century church, and the book of Acts is rich with characteristics of the first believers who carried out the Great Commission. The earliest churches were made up of baptized believers from every walk of life who worshiped and prayed together, broke bread together, shared of all things together, learned together from the teaching and preaching of the apostles, and sent out missionaries together from among their own, all in the power of the Holy Spirit. Their life as a community identified by their devotion to Christ and to one another became the mark that set them apart from the world around them."

Another thought on culture...

I was on my way back to Memphis today (so I can go back to Paris tomorrow!) and saw something that made me think: what does a $50,000 car with a little fish emblem say to the world?

Thinking about culture

I arrived in Memphis Saturday without a problem at all. When you get off of the airplane there, the first thing that hits you is the smell of barbecue coming from inside the airport. It's a wonderful thing. We went straight from the airport to my favorite hometown rib place, which was a nice welcome. Then, I knew I was in Tennessee when I passed three different trucks driven by smiling men, each towing a four-wheeler with a deer strapped across the handlebars. It started me thinking about culture. We talk alot about that in my line of work, you know. We have to understand culture to share the good news. We have to love culture in order to reach people. But what is my culture now? I come from a place where I know what you mean when you say "full slab plate with slaw" and "eight point buck." I live in a place where you know the difference between a "Brie de Meaux" and "Brie de Melun" (two different kinds of regional cheese) and how to change trains in the middle of a crowd of several thousand people. I work in an organization where you have to understand acronyms like CPM, RLT, SC, FST, and ER. All those things are part of culture. And all of those things have shaped and are shaping who I am today.

Culture is where we live and who we are. It's the pond we swim in and it's the glasses we look at the world across. It's the filter through which we hear and understand. It's what we love and hate and sometimes wish were different. And it's all part of the world God has given us. Somebody recently said that we ought to be thankful for the culture where we live instead of just being thankful for where we came from. I say that I'm thankful for all of it -- ribs, cheese, trains, and all.

Letting the scales fall off

OK, so I'm not much of a blogger. I think the idea is that you do this more than once every other month. Sorry.

I did actually wake up this morning with a thought. We spent the day yesterday with some co-workers. One couple, B & R, are extra sharp. They've got a tremendous heart for one of the least evangelical people groups in France, and I can't wait to see what God does through them. After lunch, we went riding and talking. As we talked about everything from the joys of language learning to the intricacies of driving in France, I mentioned that if I ever got fired or otherwise, I at least had figured out how I would plant a church in the US. B sounded a little surprised. I have to confess that we were in the middle of a Parisian traffic jam (literally called a "cork") and I don't remember exactly what he said, but it got me thinking nonetheless.

At first, I felt a little guilty, though I'm sure it wasn't his intention. What was I doing thinking about planting a church in the USA when God has called me to do that in France? After I thought about it a little while, something struck me: my thoughts on planting a church in France are not that different from my thoughts on planting a church in the States.

I came to France full of grand ideas about planting churches. I had books on house churches, indigenous churches, incarnational ministry churches, missional churches, and cell churches. The more I got to know my new culture, though, the less sure I was about how to plant a church. As I looked around me, it didn't really seem like many other people had it figured out either. It was a little frustrating.

Now, almost three years later, God has done something in me. He's taken me and forced me to really (I mean really) think about what "church" is. As He has pared away much of the cultural baggage from my "ideas," He has replaced that by a more biblical (though still far from complete) idea of what church is. Many of the things I wanted church to be were only the latest, coolest, most "strategic" thing. I thought they were my interpretations of this culture, but were really a reflection of, or reaction to, my own.

Over my next few posts, which I hope will come more frequently than this one, I want to expand a little on this. I want to think "out loud" about planting a church.

But back to my original "issue." How can I think about planting a church in the US and in France? Because I want to plant a biblical church that is light in darkness. A church that goes beyond culture because the Gospel goes beyond culture. Contextualization of our message is vital. We have to communicate the truth to a world that doesn't think like we do. But the heart of church is the same in first century Jerusalem and in postmodern France.

Let's start church.

Going to church...

This week, I read an article about a recent survey by George Barna on American attitudes toward the church and spiritual growth. Apparently, on one-third of evangelical believers in the US think that “a person’s faith is meant to be developed mainly by involvement in a local church.” Aside from my usual skepticism about the way survey questions are framed, I found Barna's comments a little confusing.

Barna seems to connect lack of involvement in church to lack of commitment to God. He says that the survey results are evidence of a "soft commitment to God." Now, I'll be the first to affirm that involvement in a community of believers is absolutely necessary for our faith lives. That's why I'm trying to plant churches in France. It seems to me, though, that the problem lies not with believers but with churches. We in the US have not often shown how bodylife is important, but instead have emphasized commitment to the institution.

As far as implications for work here in WE, I'd guess that a survey here would reveal that even fewer people believe that church is important. Bringing the US model here certainly won't help. Being disciples (which means walking in community) will.