I've Been Thinking About This…

I’m becoming convinced that God has started to dismantle denominations. They served a purpose at one time – they fostered unity among a congregation and between like-minded congregations, but more than that, they helped to make concrete those aspects of faith that were essential. Formularizing faith has an advantage when people need to understand what their faith is all about – doing so comes at the risk of worshipping the formula rather than the faith. When we get too passionate about KJV versus NASB versus NIV, or about choir versus worship team – then we’ve lost the point of it all.

Again:

Tradition and Institutionalization are the enemies of Creativity; their weapons are comfort and safety – and they foster sloth, conformity, acquisition and control.… and you can quote me on that.

What seems to be taking the place of the relative permanence of denominations are the multisite churches. These

• spread the Gospel and they have a focused approach – a unity – that is stable for a while. They can be dispersed across one or more states – even countries.
• are innovative, creative and malleable – something that denominations cannot be.
• are sustaining tremendous growth because they are young, dynamic and driven.
• often have a very charismatic leader at the helm, who provides energy and vision.

Any single multisite church will die off or dissipate after a few decades as the leader slows down, moves on or passes away; its footprint can be picked up by another multisite, or by some completely new form of church that God may already be moving into place.

Another way that God seems to be working today is in combining efforts across congregations. Traditionally, churches that are already established have been at odds with a new church coming to town. They resent the potential loss of congregants, and I’m sorry to say that the minister is usually leading the way in this thought process. But we are called to unity, not jealousy…

So it was refreshing to see this tweet from Geoff Surratt in late Jaunuary –

Heard through Twitter that NewSpring is coming to Charleston. Glad to hear it, we can use the help reaching the lost in the Low Country.

(@GeoffSurratt is a pastor in a large multistate multisite church called Seacoast based in Charleston, SC; @PerryNoble is the lead pastor of rapidly-growing NewSpring based out of Anderson, SC). This is out of the ordinary – even though it shouldn’t be. We are all in the Body of Christ; we have the same mission in Matt 28; we were all saved by the same Savior.

Different churches reach different people. They’re in different parts of town or the state; they have different leaders who have different skills in reaching out, in speaking, in connecting to others. One church might be blue-collar, another mostly white-collar. One church loves a liturgical service, another a contemporary one.

Could it be – just possibly – that God wants to treat churches as He does people? That he has given them different gifts with the specific intention that those gifts be used to compliment each other?

• A church in a poor part of town provides the opportunity for a (financially) wealthier church to come beside it and receive Grace through sharing finances and also hard work – and thereby to recognize that financial and social privilege is not always the boon that the world makes it out to be (sometimes it can be a terrible impediment).
• A church in India is in a tremendous position to do good for all those around it – it’s at ‘ground zero’, so to speak. It’s poor financially, but what it can buy (food, clothes, buildings) it can obtain locally at a very low cost compared to an American church. A church in the US can’t easily help physically, but it can afford to send money and perhaps a few people to give support and guidance to the fledgling church. The effect on the Indian church could be enormous, and the backwash is pure Grace.

(Interestingly, it’s the multisite church leaders that seem to be setting the pace here – we rarely if ever hear of leaders of denominations traveling overseas to work on ground-setting for church planting. Yet Pete Wilson ( @PeteWilson ), the lead pastor of CrossPoint Church in Nashville, TN is in India as I write this; Perry Noble (@PerryNoble) was in Kenya last year.)

So I see this as part of God’s way forward for us. The missionary part we’ve been doing for a while – but the connection of multiple disparate churches in the same town – that’s so rare it can be thought of as new, and I see that aspect growing in the coming decade.

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My small group buddy Mike ‘Roots’ has been writing on his blog about his church, and something he said about removing partitions struck a chord.

Mike 'Roots' Killiany

For the past week I’ve been thinking along the lines of what he calls removing ‘partitions’ as well – I’ve been calling them ‘white elephants’ – I think every church has these. They are things that meant a great deal at some point in the church’s history, but now it’s time to review their worth. The elephant can be rules and regulations, traditions, memorials, plans laid down in the past by someone revered and now gone – there’s no limit to the invasion of the white elephant.

(The term comes from a gift that was given long ago in the Far East. An albino elephant was extremely rare and thus considered holy and in turn had to be treated with extreme care. A ruler would give one to another ruler or one of his wealthy subjects, ostensibly as a generous gift, but in reality as a means of imposing a penalty. The recipient would have to spend large sums of money to house, feed and generally care for this huge beast – which, because it was holy, made no contribution to the recipient whatsoever.)

The leaders of a church are called to a ministry that will forever change. Their church’s congregation, its interests, its giving and above all the culture that surrounds it… everything is guaranteed to change. Leaders must constantly re-evaluate the choices made in previous years – do those choices still apply, or should they be adjusted or even completely removed? If they really ARE white elephants, then they need to be disposed of. They have become resource drains or ministry blockers – we do not have the luxury of wasting the resources Christ gives us for His tasks.

Removing the elephant can be rough – some toes are going to be stepped on (which, for a large elephant, can hurt!) – but then the church is free to clean out the stall, reassign the elephant keepers and get on with the job at hand.

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The pastor usually does a worship service recap on his blog, but he’s away today – so I’ll drop my thoughts off instead.

Praise Christian Fellowship

• Only 2/3rds of last week’s number in the sanctuary today because of the long weekend – a shame, because they missed a great service.
• Some glorious worship through music – our worship leaders are completely awesome – Lindsey was up today.
• Jenn has a real passion for the situation in Haiti and gave a great impromptu talk before we took up a collection.
• $2,500 – Un. Be. Lievable!
• The usually ‘got-it-all-together’ worship leader had a complete melt-down between the impact of the collection for Haiti and the anticipation of the song she was about to lead (“I See the Lord”). Which started the congregation wondering “why?”; which led to softer hearts and paying way more attention to the pain in Haiti and the worship we were in the middle of. A totally God-induced moment that resulted in (a) the other worship singers reaching out to support her and stepping up to help lead worship; (b) the congregation empathizing and singing with more of a heart for worship than ever and (c) a lot of damp faces, including one or two of the teens.
• It took Tom a while to compose himself after the music worship before he could begin his sermon. He filled in a lot of the questions on the fast that we were about to start, then went on to talk about the sanctity of Life. Good stuff.
• Lots of people took hour-long slots for prayer this coming week during the fast. Too bad the fast started on a Sunday with so few people there – I’d have loved to see the whole week covered in prayer. Maybe next year!
• Great post-service huddle – more ministry leaders joining us today to review the service – lots of warm support for Lindsey.
• I absolutely loved watching God detonate in the middle of the worship like that. My eyeballs are still leaking a bit!
• And totally love the people who pulled it all together. This place is awesome.

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Congratulations to @NewSpring church, on their 10th birthday, where @perrynoble is the lead pastor. He Twittered this today:

• Hey @NewSpring…10 years ago today there were 115 people who gathered for our first worship service! We had NO IDEA that God would do…
• …All that HE has done! And…the best is yet to come! Can’t wait until tomorrow!!!

Perry & Lucretia Noble

I passed the tweets on to my small group, and Pastor Ryan replied with this question – “What will we be shaking our heads at in disbelief at what God has done 10 years from now?!”

That got me thinking…

1. The rapture?
2. That there are now 1,043 people in our small group?

…or perhaps…

3. That our church (Praise Christian Fellowship, in Barkhamsted, CT) now has an average of 1,043 attendees, 85% of whom are striving to go deeper with the Lord, and who invited the other 15% so they can step into eternity also?
4. That we’ve run out of chairs 5 times over because members keep inviting friends?
5. That we have so many new believers that we have to rethink the way we disciple?
6. That, as we look back at 2010, we’ll be amazed at how ignorant, naïve, weak and foolish we were – but we stepped up to the mark anyway, took the risk and lived for Jesus – and it led to the hardest, most exciting and most glorious life-changing decade of our lives, totally dedicated to and utterly vindicated by Christ?

… or perhaps …

7. We’ll be shaking our heads about how life seems to be getting fuller and fuller, and that we can’t wait to see what He has next in His plan.

The best is yet to come. Always! Can’t wait.

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Mirrors can bring light in dark places
(Still from `The Mummy`)

Today’s Verse of the Day (Twitter ‘@votd votd’) reminded me of the incredible truth that, although God is jealous for His glory and His name (Ex 20:5; Ex 34:14; Deut 4:24; Deut 5:9; Deut 6:15; Josh 24:19; Eze 39:25), He delights in sharing His glory with us, which He does by working His will through us. We are told to act in His name (John 14:13-14), and in doing so become His agents.

The glory of the Lord is reflected by us, as a mirror reflects the light; the mirror has no right to boast in its light-generating capacity, for it has none, ‘though it can be praised for its smoothness and its reflectivity. It only works in the sight of the light – a mirror in a dark room has no value, be it never so perfect; when reflection of light is your sole function, you really need light!

Further, being the smoothest, clearest, cleanest, purest reflector possible will show the Source of Light most clearly. When a mirror has imperfections, those imperfections not only show up in light, they also distort the image being reflected.

Finally, when the mirror is reflecting something that is out of sight (so that the mirror is the only way you can see it), the value of the mirror is radically increased. For us as mirrors, reflecting the Image without distortion is vital. Our perfection lies in our truest reflection of the Light. Our value as transmittors of the One Light is inestimable.

Our praise lies not in being gods, but in being God’s.

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Just been thinking about the verse of the day – you can see it by twittering “@votd votd” – Psa 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. (ESV)

Getting into mischief

- and thinking about how often I am my own trouble. I’m an expert at causing all sorts of issues for myself, mostly because I ignore what is right in my quest for almost anything else. And yet, at the end of the day, when I realize how I’ve messed up yet again; when I’ve managed to prove to myself yet again that I can rocket off the straight and narrow path at a moment’s notice; when I recognize that I’m drowning – I am deeply grateful there is help at hand.

The danger, of course, is that we can take this help for granted. How are YOU doing?

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