The following is cross posted from The Great Omission study blog. Comments are closed here, but you are welcome to comment on the original post…

I’m sorry to say this, but too much of what we call Christian is not a manifestation of the supernatural life of God in our souls. Too much of what we call Christian is really just human. And now I’m going to say something really terrible, so brace yourselves or stop your ears. The church of Jesus Christ is not necessarily present when there is a correct administration of the sacrament and faithful preaching of the Word of God. The church of God is present where people gather together in the power of the resurrected life of Jesus Christ. It is possible to have the administration of the sacraments and the preaching of the Word of God and to have it simply be a human exercise. - pg. 51

Ouch.

Yesterday I sat for most of the day in a training seminar about small group ministry in churches. The church putting it on has a great small group ministry from what I know, and they had some really worthwhile things to say.

However, as they described how people learn how to be in a community and care for others, I wrestled with one question over and over: How does Jesus fit in this? I think everything they said was great, but I kept wondering what made it special from what any other religious system might call people too relationally.

This isn’t meant as a critique of that church…just what I was pondering. It is easy for us to get caught up in what we are to do as a church, and how we are to do it. Unfortunately, it is often too easy to forget the why. We don’t just gather in large or small contexts to celebrate the resurrected life of Jesus, but to continue it. We invite others to Life as he showed it to us, and it is through grace that we are empowered and enabled to do so.

I have a bit of a unique relationship with Mark Driscoll.

On the one hand, whenever I dialogue with him, I come away really respecting and appreciating him. I admire his passion to keep Mars Hill Church focused on mission, the way he values study of both theology and culture and how to intersect them, and his overall insight and ingenuity.

On the other hand, there is much where I don’t agree with him. Just to name a few — he is much more of a literalist than I when approaching the Scriptures, I don’t hold to the reformed theology he espouses and am not as conservative overall, and I often think he comes across too sure of himself and his views.

Most unique about our relationship is that he doesn’t know anything about our conversations. They’ve all taken place in my noggin as I’ve wrestled through his ideas in books or talks he’s given.

Regardless of what you think of him, I find great value in his ideas. His confidence in his views at least pushes me to clarify my own. When I react to something he says, whether positively or negatively, it causes me to ask what brings about that reaction, and define my own response to it.

Whether or note you agree with his theology or ecclesiology, I think Confessions of a Reformission Rev is a must read for anyone who wants to start or lead within a church community. He openly shares his own experience, both the good and the bad, in the birth of Mars Hill with humility and confidence. Better yet, he describes his ecclesiology as he goes, pushing the reader toward clarity on their own.

There’s much to chew on, but here’s two thoughts I find especially valuable:

• “Over the years, I have accepted that I’m really not much of a pastor but rather am a missiologist studying the city who leads a church filled with missionaries who reach the city and with pastors who care for the converts.” (pg 51) He is defining his role as a pastor, but this is worthwhile for anyone in that role to chew on. Is this what the role of lead pastor should look like for anyone, or is it a matter of style that best suits him?
• “I decided to never view our church as a church but rather always to view it like a church planter with a core group launching out to reach the city. Now we simply had a core of one thousand instead of the original twelve that began in the living room of my home.” (pg 147) YES! Even in the short ten months of Pathways, I can see how easy it is to start thinking that we’re going to make it and be a real and established church. What a dangerous way to think because it so distracts from the mission.

Last November, Joe Myers was talking about his new book, Organic Community, at the Off the Map conference here in Seattle. It was due out in the spring. I thought Joe’s previous book, The Search to Belong, had some good stuff to say, so I pre-ordered the new book from Amazon. A few weeks before it was to be released, it was pushed back to August. Now, Amazon is saying it won’t be released until August 2007! What’s up with that?!

The following is cross posted from The Great Omission study blog, which I will likely do with any entries I make there. Comments are closed here, but you are welcome to comment on the original post.

Wow, so many things in the introduction alone to chew on! One that stands out for me is Willard’s paraphrase of the Great Comission. Rather than “baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit”, he renders it “submerge them in the Trinitarian Presence”. (pg xiii)

This is a far cry from our common understanding of the Great Comission. We normally boil it down to Jesus commanding us to perform what we would now see as a sacrament signifying one’s entry into a relationship with Jesus. Could Jesus, as Willard suggests here, have meant so much more than that?

Willard refines our understanding, and reminds us that Jesus’ ultimate goal was not to get us dunked, but for us to enter into a life that was connected with His, a life lived in the Way he has set before us. Coming from a tradition that places a high emphasis on baptism by immersion, this might be seen as a challenge to our views. However, we have to remember that following Jesus is exactly the point, not the ways we have tried to define it for the last 2000 years. Besides, even if one accepts Willard’s interpretation, it does not in my mind undermine the meaning and value of the baptismal celebration.

For me, this is a welcome perspective on the passage, and one that merits further consideration.

The Great Omission book study blog officially begins tomorrow. Feel free to join in or follow along!

I also finished The Parables: Jewish Tradition and Christian Interpretation by Brad Young while on vacation. I’ll just say that this is an important book for anyone interested in studying Jesus’ parables and leave it at that.

I do want to offer one quote. In the quote below, I think he offers one of the most helpful descriptions for understanding what the “kingdom of heaven” is that I have seen:

In its most fundamental meaning, the kingdom of heaven in the teachings of Jesus denotes the reign of God, which is experienced as a present force for healing, wholeness, and salvation in people’s lives. The kingdom is never defined as identical with the coming of the Son of man. The final judgment, or course, is another display of divine sovereignty, which rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. Though the judgment may be an expression of God’s kingly power, it should not be equated with the definition of the kingdom of heaven.

While on vacation, I read, or perhams I should say skimmed, Better Together. This is a follow up to the more well-known Bowling Alone. It is filled with stories of communities of people who are creating the social capital that Bowling Alone says is diminishing in our culture.

I didn’t really enjoy the book much, though some of the stories were a bit intriguing. As a pastor, it was interesting to read a chapter on Saddleback from a nonreligious perspective. There was one quote in the summary chapter at the end of the book that made the whole thing worth my time:

We are struck, however, that many of our success stories involve organizations that work hard to avoid demonizing “the enemy,” even in tense and conflict-ridden situations.

Creating an enemy and rallying against that enemy is a common battle cry in our culture of fear, but something about it strikes me as unhealthy and dangerous. I especially think there is an important message in this for the church. When we define ourselves by what we are against, both those inside and outside our community might wonder what we are actually for. That’s not to say there aren’t things we should not agree with, or that there isn’t an enemy, but the church should be known by what it is for.

A few months ago, I posted a favorable review of Leadership and Self-Deception, by the Arbinger Institute. Someone from the Arbinger Institute read my entry, and they were gracious enough to send me a pre-release copy of The Anatomy of Peace. This book is a prequel to Leadership and Self-Deception, and is another great read.

Though it is a prequel to the story of Leadership and Self-Deception, The Anatomy of Peace can also be considered a sequel in that it furthers develops many of the ideas found in the first book. It takes them out of the context of just a leadership setting, and shows how being “out of the box” is important for all of our relationships.

Again, I appreciated the narrative form that the ideas were presented in, although this one has more characters, so it took a little more work to follow along. Though the narrative form is an easy read, the reader shouldn’t be too quick to fly through this book as they would a work of fiction. The concepts presented are worthy of a lot of reflection, and they should be granted that.

The book is due to be released later this month, but it looks like Amazon is already shipping it. I’d recommend both of these books for individuals who are serious about growing relationally, as well as for teams that are working intimately alongside each other.

Some friends and I are putting together a group/study/blog to read through The Great Omission, by Dallas Willard. You can find the blog at TheGreatOmission.com.

This is an open invitation for anyone who would like to join us. We won’t be starting the study until the first full week of August, so there is plenty of time for you to get the book. We will read a few chapters each week, and dialogue about them as we go.

You can either register on the site, or leave a comment below if you’d like to paricipate. Right now, we are heavy on the testosterone, so I’d especially like to have some female voices included.