Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

I think this is the last post in this series. Thanks for all the comments and discussion.

In summing up the significance of the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15), New Testament scholar Richard Longenecker writes:

“The decision reached by the council must be considered one of the boldest and magnanimous in the annals of church history. While attempting to minister exclusively to Jews themselves, Jewish Christians in Jerusalem refused to impede the progress of that other branch of the Christian mission whose every success inevitably meant only further difficulty and oppression for them.”

I doubt the Jerusalem Community had much grasp on the long-term implications of their decision. For just a moment, let’s pretend that they did and see where this pleasant fiction leads.

Could those of us in established Churches of Christ imitate our Jewish brothers and sisters in Acts 15 and give our blessing to those who are called to reach people in our emerging culture that most of our congregations aren’t currently positioned to reach? By give a blessing, I don’t just mean a prayer and a pat on the back. I mean blessing in The Big-hair Network (TBN) sense of the word.

Can we hand them a wad of cash and tell them to go out and plant the church of God’s dreams? Actually, they’ll need more than cash. To pull it off, they’ll need our coaching, our prayers, some of our people–who are probably frustrated with what we are presently doing–and a whole bunch of other stuff I can’t think of. What if we told them the only strings attached to the money and everything else we’ll commit is that they must take the best our heritage has to offer and re-articulate it in the language of our emerging culture, while at the same time doing their best not to make the same mistakes we have?

Limiting myself to just a sentence: The “best” from our heritage that I want to see carried forward is a desire to understand and restore the spirit of New Testament Christianity, which is really only worth doing if we believe that the energizing power of the Risen Christ is just as available to us as it was to the earliest Christians.

On whatever documentation we draw up to formalize the deal, we should include in bold print a statement saying something like: It is our expectation that the church resulting from this partnership will not look like ours and that is AOK with us.

If we do this, here is what I predict. Sacrificially planting churches that are free to shuck and jive in our culture in ways our existing congregations can’t, will induce more change in our congregations than a thousand consecutive “our church must change or die” sermons could ever hope to. Nothing changes parents more than having kids. So, let’s get busy making babies.

From time to time, we’ll need to invite our offspring back home and find ways to interact. Rather than reducing interaction to a joint worship service, maybe we could find ways to partner with each other in missional efforts. We could build a Habitat house together. I’m pretty sure both moderns and post-moderns will agree on the appropriate use of a hammer and saw. Even if we don’t, the cross-pollination will do both of us some good.

If we decide to spend some time worshiping together, then it seems appropriate to me that we ask our kids to come into our house and worship by our rules. When they see what a stretch it was for some of us to give them the freedom to do what they’re doing and when they acknowledge it, then we can say that we expect them to do the same for those who will someday come to them asking for some breathing room.

In fact, we might go back and revise the contract mentioned above to say the following: We expect the church resulting from this partnership, which will not look like our church, to make its resources available to those who will someday be called by God to plant a church that looks nothing like either one of our congregations!

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

The only baggage you can bring is all that you can’t leave behind.-U2

Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.” Genesis 22:2 (NIV)

Here is a modest proposal.

If we in Churches of Christ want to engage the emerging culture around us, while at the same time preserving the heritage we love, then we have to let go of the very identity we hold so dear.

This is God’s mission, not ours. We have neither the right nor the luxury to set our own terms in this matter. Saying the following is not option:

“We desperately want the people around us to start following Jesus. We’ll do anything God wants us to do in order to see it happen. We’re totally open to what God wants to do among us–just as long as we get to keep worshiping acapella, keep the name “Church of Christ” on the sign out front, and continue to do things the way we’ve always done them.”

Like Abraham, we must be willing to put our Isaac on the altar. We must embrace the paradox of letting go of our past in order to secure our future. Only when we are willing to let go of our heritage for the sake of God’s mission, are we ready to set on foot on the mission field just outside our front door.

The only way I can see this happening is one congregation at a time, in one community at a time. It’s time to make the most of our congregational autonomy.

Let us as leaders declare that our particular congregation exists for no higher cause than to bring glory to God by being a blessing to our community. Let us begin to listen rigorously to our community by doing the same kind of research foreign missionaries do when engaging a new culture. Let us come to know the nooks and crannies of our communities better than our community does. Let us identify the needs of our community that can best be addressed by the mix of passions, interests, and gifts in our congregation. Let us resolve to let nothing hinder us from addressing those needs. As creativity flows and opportunities arise, let us set aside the predilections of our Church of Christ heritage, much in the same way a 1st century Jew would set aside his in order to engage the Gentile culture around him. With reckless abandon, let us make mistakes that only Jesus-crazed missionaries can make. Let us push the boundaries of orthodoxy for the sake of the message. If we are going to sin, let us, in the words of Martin Luther, “sin boldly.” Let our descendants analyze our efforts and judge them harshly because we tried too hard and went too far, not because, in an effort to play it safe, we ended up doing nothing.

If we were to do such a thing, then like Abraham, we would discover that we are only able to secure that which we treasure the most, when we are willing to let go of it. The best way I know to preserve our heritage is to put it on the line.

Our acapella worship style is not our biggest obstacle to overcome, but our love of it, our desire to preserve it, dare I say our idolatrous attachment to it, is indicative of a larger attitude that will continue to hinder our participation in God’s mission.

Please don’t take this as a call for Churches of Christ to starting using instruments in worship as a way of expanding our mission. Trust your Uncle Wade on this one; such a move is not going to solve our problems. Take it instead, as a call to stop taking our heritage, of which acapella worship is symbolic, so stinkin’ seriously. The tighter we hold on to our traditions, the more likely they are to slip from our grasp.

The question is not: Should we set aside everything that makes a “Church of Christ” a “Church of Christ” in order to win some to Christ? The question is: Are we willing to set it all aside if that is what God wants and what the world needs us to do?

The answer each congregation gives to this question is going to determine the future of our storied fellowship.

Read Part 7

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

in-no-va-tion (noun)
1. The act of introducing something new.
2. Something newly introduced.
3. A word you will not see on a Church of Christ website when perusing its core beliefs, values, and commitments.

Another reason Churches of Christ are struggling to engage our emerging culture is that we are paralyzed by the fear of being wrong. Our heritage, which has trained us to try to be “right” in all things, has seriously altered and impaired our God-given creativity gene.

We’re deeply suspicious of the word “innovation.” In the next Elders meeting, use it in a sentence that does not include the names “Nadab” and “Abihu” and then sit back in awe as you watch facial ticks emerge randomly and then sync up in an act of self-organization that would amaze a colony of ants.

In order to be innovative, we have to be willing to make mistakes. Creativity demands false starts and wrong turns. We struggle to cultivate such an environment in Churches of Christ. Is it because we are still holding on to an image of a bureaucratic God who is looking for reasons to exclude us and is willing to use even the most sincere of blunders as justification? I’m not sure that’s the case, but I don’t think I can dismiss it either.

I don’t view God in this way, at least not on a conscious level, but I must confess that I am hopelessly addicted to methodological correctness. I have a hard time pulling the trigger on an idea or an initiative until I’m positive I’ve got it right. I’m not this way in all areas of my life, just church stuff. I wonder why?

I spent most of my twenties reading books in search of the right method for doing evangelism, organizing a church for growth, and interpreting scripture. Rather than try something and see if it worked, I kept looking for the perfect method that offered a risk-free guarantee. The result? I spent more time reading about biblical interpretation than I spent actually reading the Bible. My “books on evangelism read to actual evangelistic conversations had” ratio is about 5 to 1. I’m still not sure I’ve found the best way to do it, so I continue to look for a better method.

Why? Because I can’t shake the belief that somewhere out there is one way to do something that is better than all the other ways. I love the idea of my being the one to find it! I think this belief is somehow connected to my religious heritage. (I could be wrong about this, which of course terrifies me all the more!)

I’m a product of my tribe. We know deep in our bones that what we’re doing now is not working. It’s obvious we need to change. But we can’t seem to muster the required creativity. We can’t bring ourselves to embrace innovation as a way of life.

So we sit by the side of the road, paralyzed by the fear of embarking on a risky mission.

If only we knew someone who was able to make the lame walk. Even if we did, I wonder if we would have the courage to get up and follow him?

Read Part 6