Retooling: Tension Brings Strength

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXXVII

Several years ago we had a pastor who claimed he liked to “stretch” us, so he found a six fool rubber band (unstretched) and stretched it until it was almost ten feet long, threatening to “let it fly” when released.  Later as a lay witness coordinator, I gave everyone on my team rubber bands to wear around their wrists all weekend to remind them of how we were going to “stretch” their faith that weekend.

A rubber band is really of no value and no use until it is stretched.  With tension comes strength.  A strong rubber band is one that can be stretched a great distance and hold its tension.  There are a multitude of uses for stretched rubber bands. Unfortunately a rubber band whose tension is too great, being stretched too far, can snap, be dangerous, and cause harm.

Often in church, every thing is done to avoid tension.  Tradition often compensates the fear of change, the fear of being stretched too far.  Church is all about people, people and relationships, and that is the breeding ground for tension, particularly when there is diversity that is unchecked.  So what does this have to do with the five fold?

With the five fold, you have five different points of view, five different giftings, five different passions, and if there is not a system of check and balances, you too have the breeding ground for tension and division.  Each different point of view and passion tugs and pulls, stretching the others.  It would be very easy to dig in, defending ones point of view, creating division, rather than submitting to other’s points of view, creating unity.  What can take the edge off of all the tension that could be created? Answer: service and accountability.

With the five fold, each point of view and passion must lay down their lives to each other in service, or there  will be no integrity in one’s ministry.  When one lays down their life for you, it is easy to submit to them, creating accountability.  If the five fold is to succeed, service, the laying down of one’s life, and accountability will the ingredients needed to succeed.

The 21^st Century Church needs stretched if it is to be retooled.  The tension it can take is the gifting of an apostle who can read the tensions, know to use those tensions for the common good producing productivity while creating unity.  If there is ever a time that the apostle needs to be reestablished in the Church, it is today, while the Holy Spirit is retooling the Church!  That over sight, seeing over how far things can be “stretched”, but allowing tension to be used in a positive manner, can be an effective tool in the retooling process.

How far will you allow the Holy Spirit to “stretch you”?  How far will you allow the Holy Spirit to retool the church you are part of?  How far can you “trust” the Holy Spirit, the true measurement of how far you are willing to be “stretched”.  The Holy Spirit will not allow you to break, to snap.

A church without tension is a safe church that will never snap, but it will never be very useful either!  Come Holy Spirit; come retool the Church today; stretch us!

Retooling: God’s People Gotta Step It Up!

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXXVI

I recently heard the fact that only 10% of those attending church do 100% of the work done by the laity, and that does not count the work done by the staff.  That kind of data shows that the church is not practicing the Ephesians 4 principle of “preparing the saints for the work of the service.”  For whatever reason, churches have opted to “prepare the ‘staff’ for the work of the service” because either the saints won’t do it, or aren’t allowed to do it!

If Sunday mornings are any reflection of those statistics, when attending almost any church service, live or streamed over the internet, it is the worship team and pastor who preaches who are the focus of the service, not the those in the congregation.  The worship leader and pastor carry the program.  The offertory and giving offering is about 10% of the program.

I guess the central questions is how the church is to “prepare the saints” and for “what service”?  It is quite the challenge. Does the Church want to face that challenge?  If so, it would take quite a “retooling” of how one does “Sunday services”, how one “trains, equips, or prepares” those attending their church, and defining what “services” they may or may not do.  Change demands new mindset!  Retooling demands drastically new mindsets!

I remember once being told by a clergy that they were on the only ones who could perform the sacrament of communion.  I couldn’t believe that if I had Christian friends over to my house and decided to have communion with them that it would be frowned upon by the church.  The first question asked may be what is church going to allow the saints to do.  The second questions asked may be what are the saints willing to do?  Before those two questions are answered, it would be hard to determine the “preparations” and defining the “service”.

As long as there is a clergy/laity faction, it will be hard to determine a “team” effort that a five fold ministry would require of developing giftings and passions with in the laity, releasing them, and then supporting them.  The “laying down of one’s life” cannot be effective with different distinctions of “position”.  It must be a team of equality; the giving and taking of each one as equals even though their passions and points of view differing.

So if we are to get a larger percent of those attending church to do a majority of the “work of the service”, the Church faces a drastic retooling process, or accept the status quo of the same old, same old.  Are we, the Church, to take Ephesians 4 seriously?  Then we need to address serious “retooling” of how we do “church”!

Retooling: Scrooge and “Restitution”: The How To Do It!

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXXV

So in the last several blogs I have raised the question about who, as a church, are we called to serve?  To whom shall we lay our lives down for ( IJohn 3:16)?  Today I ask the question, “How are we to lay down our lives?”

The key to this answer lies in the word “restitution ”.  Restitution is a word most people have no idea of its definition.  An online legal dictionary (http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/q044.htm ) has defined it as: “An equitable remedy that restores a person to the position they would have been in if not for the improper action of another.  Reimbursements ordered by courts as apart of a criminal sentence or civil or administrative penalty. Restitution is a standard of remedy for breach of contract and for the return of specific property and monies paid.”

I think Charles Dickens in his infamous Christmas Carol tries to depict the definition of restitution through his character Scrooge, for at the end of the novel he says of Scrooge, “Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more.”  It concludes, “It was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.”  What is this knowledge he possessed.  Scrooge’s “bah-humbug” attitude brought hurt and division among his family (with his nephew), resentment toward him (Cratchet’s wife), an ill reputation as being stingy toward the poor (“Do we not have poor houses, institutions?”), and employee/employer divisions (with Cratchet).  He has hurt and used a lot of people to obtain his goal, wealth. Only when faced with the understanding of his past, those things that molded him, when faced with his current actions and decisions, and faced with the consequences of all of this, does he decide to make a change, a turning point.

In the church world, we call that turning point “repentance”.  He was more than “sorry” for what he did; he practices “restitution” with “repentance”: he gave back more than what was required “legally”.  He not only gives the Cratchets a turkey, but the “prized” turkey; he not only gives Bob Cratchet a raise, but makes him his “business partner” so that when he dies all that he owns is Cratchet’s!  He doesn’t share just sympathy towards Tiny Tim’s illness, but gives him “life” by paying for all the bills.  It alludes to the fact that he goes even beyond that, “and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father.” He was now into building relationships which I am sure his nephew benefited from.  And to those who in the city frowned on his frugality, snide remarks, and sarcasm, “He became as good a friend, as a good master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.”

Restitution in the kingdom of God goes beyond an apology, goes beyond the legal definition of making it right as if it never happened.  Restitution, in the New Testament Biblical sense, means going the second mile, giving more than your cloak if asked, forgiving 70 X 7, doing more than is required of you. It requires “laying down your life” for others.  The price for our sins was Jesus laying down his life for us, going beyond our sin, carrying all the sins of the world, not only extending forgiveness, but giving “eternal life”, life beyond this earth, with Him.  Amazingly Jesus has given the Church the tools needed to carry out this restitution called “grace” and “mercy”.

Scrooge had acquired the knowledge of the Spirit of Christmas, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit which guided him to go far beyond what was required of him to mend the hurts of the past he had created, the emptiness of the present, and the disappointments of the future.  Cratchet, Tiny Tim, his nephew and others now became more important than he.  He was no longer “Number #1”; others were.  That is the spirit of “laying down one’s life for his brethren”, the spirit of serving, the spirit of maturing into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

How do you “equip, prepare” the saints for the work of the service?  Simply by allowing that Christmas Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, his Holy Spirit, to confront you, change you, and nurture and develop you to go beyond what is expected.  It may also be your defining “turning point”.  That is a good start.  

Retooling: A Visible Model To Examine

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXXIV

In my last blog, I proposed a challenge to embrace a different form of church structure that would promote “accountability” and “service”, embracing both control and the moving of the Holy Spirit.  If it is a pluralistic model, not of offices, but of believers “serving” through a God given passion or point of view, how can it work if pluralistic leadership has not been embraced by most of the Church over the last twenty centuries?  Again the key to any pluralistic leadership is I John 3:15, the principle of “laying down your life for your brethren.”   That is what Jesus did for us, and a model of what we should be doing for one another.

I also proposed that no one of the five fold points of view or passions of service is ever “the head” of this pluralistic team, not even the apostle.  Only the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, can be the head. I proposed that any of the five fold passions can be aroused by the Holy Spirit’s call to meet a specific situation at a specific time with the other four passions beside them to bring unity, stability, and accountability.  As a different situation arises, a different passion can arise to effectively address that situation, again with the other four passions support, encouragement, and covering.  Leadership can be a rotational things as the Holy Spirit rises among individuals and the group.  (Thus in my diagram, the star is in a circle, and the circle can be rotated at any time by the leading of the Holy Spirit.)

In my diagram, each point of the star is created by the “relationship” of each of the five fold to the other four.  Each relationship is reciprocal: as one serves, one becomes accountable to the other, and vice versus.  The “laying down of one’s life” produces the heart of service and the acceptance of accountability to passions and points of view that are so drastically different from one’s own.  The power of the star is its diversity, the many faceted ways it can look at and approach situations. The unity of the five is its strength due to the power of the cross (See earlier blogs: where the “supernatural” (John 3:16) dissects our “natural” world (I John 3:16) forming the Cross.)  with the “laying down one’s life” becoming the central principle of unity.

Under this structure, the Church would remain Biblically “sound” under the guidance of the passions of the teacher, prophet, and apostle, preventing heresies and restoring the “apostle’s teaching” back into the Church restoring its unity.  Under this structure, the Church would become Biblically “alive” as the teacher bases everything the group does on the Bible, the Logos, the written word, translating it into to Rhema, or living Word, the shepherd instructs the believers in Jesus how to daily walk out these Biblical principles, the prophet living out the written Word, the Logos Word, the living Word, through the Rhema Word, the evangelist exposing this Rhema Word, grounded in the Logos Word, to an unbelieving generation through power and truth (as they did in the book of Acts), and an apostle “seeing over” how the Holy Spirit is orchestrating unity and ministry through this group through “service” and “accountability” by releasing and with holding those passions and points of view when needed. 

Wow, the 21^st Century Church would become “Acts”-ive again like the 1^st Century Church did.  A community of breaking bread together, meeting one another’s need, a Church without want, a Church with power, would again be established.  “Relationships” between brethren would again be the key of what “Church” is!   But at what price? The price of the Cross: the “laying down of one’s life”.

Retooling: Accountability, A Radically Different Approach

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXXIII

The Church has always struggled over control asking to whom is it to be accountable? Of course, the answer is always to the head, Jesus Christ, but in practical terms, to whom is it accountable?  As it institutionalizes, a hierarchy always develops which assumes the responsibility of bringing accountability to the structure. Laws, By-Laws, Tenants, and theological position papers establishing “laws” to govern morality and doctrine within the structure are created to prevent heresies.  More control diminishes the fluidity of the Holy Spirit moving within it.  Control versus the Spirit has become an age-old tension within the Church for centuries.  The question I am posing is, “Can there be a structure that would bring accountability yet allow the movement of the Spirit?”

I believe there is a structure which the 21^st Century Church should at least look at, observe, discuss, and possibly embrace, but the structure is a radical change from the traditional structure set forth by the Church fathers over the centuries as they embraced the Western Roman Catholic approach of hierarchy. So what is this structure?

First, I believe that God is restoring the five fold back into His Church.  He wants his believers to be evangelists, those that birth the kingdom of God in individuals and the Church, to be shepherds to nurture, care, and develop his sheep to be mature in Christ, to be teachers of the Word, making the written Word a living Word, to be prophets, people who listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit and then wish to be obedient towards that voice, and to be apostles to see over the Holy Spirit’s movement by developing, encouraging, then releasing the other four giftings or passions of service to bring maturity to the individual believer and unity in the body of Christ.

Second, I believe the restoring of such radically different points of view of ministry can bring division, as history has proven, unless those who practice each of the five different passions is willing to “lay down their lives” for the other four through service.  Through serving one another, accountability will be established. It is natural to listen to and follow someone who is willing to sacrificially serve you.  As you serve one another, a bond of accountability is created.

Third, the presence of four different points of view at the table (evangelistic, shepherding, teaching, prophetic, and apostolic) will bring stability and prevent heresies as each point of view becomes a check and balance through service and accountability, again with the emphasis of sacrificially laying down one’s life for one another. 

I know this sounds idealistic because today those different points of view have produced divisions, denominations, church splits, schisms, etc. in the Church, but that is because those in the Church are not willing to “lay down their lives” for one another.  We preach that we need to lay everything on the altar and allow the Holy Spirit to consume it; the giving it back restored or renewed is an option but not a given, yet we are unwilling to “lay down our lives” for those Christians who are not in our “camp” of theology.  We will never see true revival in the Church until the Church is prepared to “repent” of what has divided it.  “Repentance” means the turning away of what was wrong, so if the Church is to turn away from the very structure that has divided it for centuries, what should the 21^st Century Church turn toward?  I propose the five fold structure of “service” (through one’s gifting or passion) and “accountability” (laying down of one’s life sacrificially).

Fourth, this then becomes a “pluralistic” leadership where no one gifting, passion, or point of view is the head, the chief administrator, the C.E.O., the pastor, bishop or the pope.  The apostle is not even the “head” for he is only one of the five passions of service; Jesus is the head over all five passions. When the five get together the gifting or passion that is most needed rises at that moment, at that time, to face that situation with the other four supporting that gifting or passion through their service.  The next situation could be totally different with a different passion of the five fold rising.  Only the moving of the Holy Spirit would dictate which passion of service may rise and be supported by the others in unity.

I know this model is drastically different from today’s church boards, professional hierarchical structures, but if the Church is to be “without spot and wrinkle” as a “preparation” for the Lord’s return, then maybe the 21^st Century Church should embrace a system that is to “prepare” the “saints” for the work of the “service” to develop believers into the maturity of the “full measure of Christ” brining unity to the Body of Christ, the Church, in preparation for Jesus Second Coming, a prophesied event that will happen!  Come on 21^st Century Church, let’s start the “preparation” period and begin to move toward “service” and “accountability” through a fluid model of leadership under the direction of the Holy Spirit!  That is my challenge.

Retooling: Skimming the Cream: What Kind Of Milk Do You Have?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXXII

Back before convenience stores, in the era of milkmen actually delivering milk to your door, there was a time when you could buy “whole” milk.  What a concoction?  You would find a section of cream floating on the top, and you would shake your bottle to mix it with the rest of its contents before drinking.  Another option is to skim your cream and make ice cream from it and drink the rest of its contents. Today we have eliminated the “cream” where only a fraction of our milk contains the fat or cream, thus 2%, 1%, or skim milk, which health advocates claim is healthier for you.

If you would allow me, let’s use the milk analogy to today’s church. If we would “skim” the cream, the pastor and the paid staff from your church, what would be left in your church’s life, activity, and ministry?  Does the rest of those in your church do 2%, 1% or even an anemic less percent of the work and ministry, and is the church considered “healthy” if it does?

I believe the five fold is the opportunity to serve according to one’s passion, desire, or point of view for the saints, those remaining after the “cream” has been skimmed: those saints who want to win their lost and dying generation; those saints who care for the sick, those afflicted, facing dramatic life situations, the hurting, for the purpose of caring, nurturing, and developing them in to mature Christ-like people; those who have faithfully studied the word academically for years, but now yearn to release that knowledge of the Word into a living, vibrant Word through their daily life;  those who have a passion to “know God”, hear from God, be obedient to God; and those who see the big picture of all these passions, wanting to serve them and release them, but being frustrated because of not being allowed because they were not looked upon as being part of the “cream”.

If we then shake the bottle, the church, causing each of these passions to serve each another and be accountable to each another by laying their lives down for one another, we will have what was originally intended at its creation, whole milk, a whole church, a rich church, a healthy church.

The life of the Church is in its people, not is structure or professional staff, for if those are skimmed from the picture, what is left?  Look at the underground Church in persecuted lands where pastors are targeted for prison, persecution, or even death.  With their elimination came even a stronger “believer base”, the contents of their milk of ministry, service, and Christian life was even more enriched.

My call is for the people of God, the believers in Jesus Christ to arise, allow the Holy Spirit to do some “shaking” of our structures, forcing believers to be what they were intended to be in Jesus.  That shaking will cause an infusion of God’s people, not the separation.  When the church becomes stagnant, like pure milk, the particles will separate and a hierarchy of cream will try to arise to take “control”, causing a separation rather than allowing God to continually “shake” our bottle, our structure, so that the body will continue to be infused, joined, united together. Do the saints in your church feel they are part of whole milk, the whole local body of Christ, or only a fraction of it?  What percent of your church participates in the ministry, the decision making, and the serving ministries if the paid staff would be eliminated?

A healthy church is a church that allows a whole lot of shaking to continually happen by the Holy Spirit! Does your cream rise, or is it continually shaken to be part of the “whole” milk? Are there two parts in your mik bottle, your church, the professional staff and the others, producing a clergy/laity division?  Leadership in the 21^st Century Church comes from the shaking by the Holy Spirit, causing infusion of all believers through “serving” one another, dying for one another, and remaining with those of different passions, desires, and points of view in this interweaving concoction.  Leadership is not allowing stagnation, forcing the doers and non-doers and the haves and have-nots to separate, allowing the doers and haves to rise and the non-doers and have-nots to sink causing separation.  All believers in Jesus Christ “have” his Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus Christ, and all believers are to be “doers” of the Word, so let the shaking begin and continue.

Retooling: Value of Investing, the Cost

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXXI

When you invest in something, feeling ownership of it, you take better care of it, compared to when you work with “other’s” investment  or items.  Do those who attend your church feel “ownership” to it as if it is their own?  What is their part?  What function do they play?  Are they active in the day to day activities?  How does one “invest” in your church other than financially?  Good questions with tough answers!

The price for “investment” in church life is greater than in financial, because the price lies in relationships.  The Church is all about relationships; that’s what makes it a “living organization”.  When the bottom line becomes money, the “living organization” becomes an “institution” and budgeting, building & grounds, and staffing needs become high priorities.  Church, as an institution, always has a business side to it, but what about the price of relationships.

I have contended that the only way a five fold flow of service oriented ministry could be developed through laity, through the believers in relationship as a body of Christ is through IJohn 3:16, that of “laying down one’s life for the brethren.”  In today’s mega-churches, it is easy to be loss, unidentified, blending in, but not getting close to anyone or exposing one’s life or true self.  The same is true if one only “attends a service” once a week.

If one is “investing” in his/her church, it will cost “laying down one’s life” for others.  It not about self, not about what I want in a church, not about what best meets or suits my needs, not about what is most convenient for oneself.  It is about serving others, serving those who are different than ourselves, those with different passions, point of views, desires, drives, etc.  Most churches hang around those of like-mindness, often of the same race, or economics.  Church groups are often cliquish, wanting those outside their camp to conform to their norms in order to be accepted, rather than reaching out to cultures or norms with which they are unfamiliar.

I believe that the Church’s strength lies in its diversity, when those who are diverse are willing to lay down their lives for each other, who are willing to “serve” one another, who are willing to be accountable to one another.  I know this idea is novel, and probably not to be well received by today’s church, but it is the only way to bring unity to a now fragmented church that chooses to isolate itself from the many different “sects” outside one’s camp.  John 16 is Jesus’ priestly prayer for unity in the Body of Christ, but that unity can only come at the same price that Jesus paid, the laying down of one’s life.

Jesus “laid down his life” for us; ought we to also “lay down our life” for our brethren.  Isn’t that Christ-like?  One of the purposes of the five fold is to help the believer become more “mature” in Christ, more Christ-like, as well as bringing unity in the Body. 

The price of investment: “laying down one’s Life”.

Retooling: How Do We Invest In Ourselves?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXX

How are we, the church, to invest in ourselves to be more effective, more Christ-like, more mature in the faith, and more productive?

Before many a church offering I have heard the cry to give as “an investment into the kingdom of God”.  I never have taken the time to ask, “What really am I investing in?  What is this kingdom of God?”  Most of what I give goes to the local church, so is the local church the kingdom of God, or is there more?  Is my ‘investment’ paying good dividends?  What am I getting for my ‘investment’ dollar?” the secular investor would ask. The religious sector asks, “What fruit is being produced?”

Maybe we, the Church, need to study all the “kingdom of God” parables again!  No, maybe we should allow the Holy Spirit to teach us the ‘kingdom of God” principles that are hidden in the parables, then “act” on those principles.  The “Good Samaritan” actually invested in the kingdom of God! How?  Through “service”, physically and financially, yet he never gave “through a church”!  Jesus invested in the Woman at the Well, another Samaritan, and it did not cost him financially anything.  The results, a revival in her town!  Jesus “invested” in the twelve, teaching them how to serve, which they did and changed the world.  We, the Church, must examine what we are “investing in” and the results of that “investment”.

Ephesians 4 states that we need to “invest” in the saints; we are to equip, prepare, nurture, and care for them for the purpose of “service”, for the purpose of their “maturity in Christ”, and for the purpose of bringing unity to the Body of Christ.  That is quite an investment producing phenomenal dividends!  How can this be done?  Only through the “kingdom principle” of laying things down and dying can we see resurrection and life.  I John 3:16 states that we are to “lay down our lives for our brethren.”  Laying down, dying to self, for the sake of the Brethren that we are ‘investing” in, is the only way the Church will see a resurrection, a revival.  This is central to the “kingdom of God” principles.  This is the key to what we invest, how we invest, and the dividends we expect to see from our investment.

But this seems impossible with a church known for divisions, for fighting one another in the name of “defending the faith, the truth, and the Bible,” for stoning the brethren not in their camp, still being one of the most segregated institutions in our society.  If not in our camp, we would rather tear each other down than build each other up, strip one another of their dignity instead of praising and encouraging one another, raising the other brother above themselves instead of raising oneself above their brethren.  But with Jesus “all things are possible”, especially if the Holy Spirit is orchestrating it!  We, the Church, have to allow the Holy Spirit to teach us how to “equip”, to “prepare”, to “build up, encourage”, to “nurture” each other toward Christ-likeness individually and corporately.  Only through the leading of the Holy Spirit and the laying down of our lives can we even begin to see how Ephesians 4 can work in practicality.

Again I ask, “Can we trust the Holy Spirit” to lead us?”  But I also ask, “Can I trust my fellow brethren in the faith?”  To the latter, only if I am willing to lay down my life for my brethren, and my brother is willing to lay down his life for me.  To the former, only if I am willing to trust the “Spirit of Jesus Christ” to “teach me all things” pertaining to the kingdom of God.  That takes a lot of “trusting” and a lot of “dieing”!

What is the 21st Century Church Truly Investing In?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXIX

As a public school teacher, I am told that the tax payers’ dollars are going toward investing in the children of our school district, for they are the future.  As a church-attender, I am also told that the children are our investment, and the youth are the future of the church.  In the 21^st Century, the corner community church of local residents is rare.  People drive by each other on Sundays attending churches every which way but their own neighborhood.  The youth, our so-called future, go off to college then move away from the area to job markets that can support their degrees.  Others slowly drift away while seeking their identities when in the twenties.  It always amazes me how many famous secular musicians were birthed and nurtured in the church, only to out grow the musical limitations placed on them, and leave for greener secular pastures.  We birthed them, trained them, then lose them.

So I ask, “What is the 21^st Century Church Truly Investing In?”  What is its future? It’s direction? Its goals?

Instead of tax dollars, where are “offering dollars” going, for where that money is spent tells what is truly important to that church.  Where are your “offering dollars” going?  What percentage of your church budget goes to staff, staffing needs, and materials for the staff to use?  What percentage for building and grounds?  How much of the budget that is given by those in the congregation directly goes back to the congregation to develop them in their spiritual growth?  How much to missions locally? Nationally? Internationally?

Ephesians 4 says we are to equip, prepare, nurture, and develop the “saints”, those in the church, not just the “staff” for the “work of the service.”  Our investment should be “the people” who are in the church, make up the church, who are the Church!  Any revival begins with “investing” in the “saints”, those common believers who are the Church!  But how many churches look upon their mission as developing their own “people” to do the “work” of the Church through service?  Not every person can minister “full time” as a professional, but every person can “serve” “all the time”, at work, at home, while playing, visiting, fellowshipping, even if it is their spouse, etc.

What do we get for our investment?  I remember having to “buy” the paper back book I used in our local small group Bible study. The church didn’t buy them for us as “an investment”.  Then again, the results of our book study were discussions on the topics outlined in the book and fellowship afterwards.  If the book was on “service”, we discussed it, but did we change and go out and serve?  If the book was about “evangelism”, we again discussed it, but never did we go out into our community evangelizing.  A new book, a new topic with more discussion every 9 weeks, but with the same results, no change in our lives or the way we “did church” because of our studies.  So what does it mean to “equip the saints for the work of the service?”  How are we, the church, to invest in ourselves to be more effective, more Christ-like, more mature in the faith, and more productive?

Let’s take a deeper look at that question.

Retooling: Education Reform In Our Churches?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXVII

How do we retool teaching in the 21^st Century Church?  What would Sunday mornings look like if we allowed the people who are congregating together to “experience” Jesus rather than just “hear about” him?  What does “learning about” Jesus even mean?

Who Is Jesus?

Answer: the Son of God, the Living Word, the Alpha and Omega, the First Fruits, the Sacrificial Lamb, the Resurrection and the Life, Hope Eternal, the Apostle of the Church, the King in the kingdom of God, the Groom coming for his Bride, etc., etc., etc.  All “academic” correct answers, and I can provide scriptures to back every title given above.  Using a Concordance, a “study” of the names of God and the names of Jesus can reveal academically “who Jesus Is”, who “I AM” as God identified himself to Moses. A Commentary on those names would also aide in our understanding of what “scholars” have thought about his names. Through massive amounts of “studying” the true Jesus, the Historical Jesus, the Christian-Judean Jesus, will be revealed to our understanding.

Answer: Jesus is the light that erases the “shadow of death” from the valley in the 23^rd Psalm; Jesus is like the sunrise and sunset of each day, contrasting darkness to the colors of blues, oranges, and reds that splash across the painted sky we call the beginning and the end; Jesus is like the sweet sound of silence, softly singing songs so graceful only the spirit within us can hear. The poet shares through his five senses how he has “experienced” Jesus. The Songs of Solomon, is not just a “hot romance book” in the Bible, but a poetic tribute by a man known as the “wisest” man of his age who “experienced” God as his father David had, who was known for having “a heart” for God for he, too, had “experienced” God.  Solomon was known to be “wise”, not intellectual, in his approach to “experiencing” life!  Who better to write a romance book than a man who “experienced” hundreds of wives!  Would that make for a reality tv show today! 

Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I AM?”  They reiterate what others have said, “a prophet, John the Baptist, etc”, but Jesus refocuses them again, asking them “out of their experiences” of walking daily with him, “but who do you say that I am?”  Previous Old Testament scripture is not expounded on proving Jesus’ existence, but he wants to validate the “I AM” through their experience!

How would people in your congregation share their “experience” in Jesus? Through “testimony”, prose, the telling of “their story”, or poetically, the internal examining of their story? 

Greg Bachman, my poetic cousin, defined the difference between “prose” and “poetry” as different points of view, or way we look at things.  Prose takes an object as a starting point and “expands”, externally, on it, thus a believer starts with “salvation” experience and expands on how it effected his faith walk, his spiritual journey through life to this current point called today.  Poetry, on the other hand, takes an object and “examines” it “internally”.  The focus is on the object and remains on it, digging for insights, revelation, and new truths about it, thus “salvation” becomes an experience one examines through his six senses, our spirituality being the 6^th sense, discovering all kinds of truths, revelations, and insights of what “salvation” means to “us” through our “experience”.

We need to bring the two worlds together in the 21^st Century Church:  The “experiential” spiritual world of the Living, Rhema, Word is in danger of becoming heretical if not grounded on the Writing, Logos, Word.  On the other hand the “educationally” sounded and grounded academic world of the Written, Logos, Word is endanger of stagnation and death if it is not vitalized by the Living, Rhema, Word.  JESUS IS THE WORD, both written and living!  He is the “living” embodiment and total fulfillment of the “written” word!  Only until the 21^st Century Church embraces and accepts both the written and living “words” and written and living “worlds”, can it begin to be effectively united in word and deed.

The Westernized church fights to remain the academic defender of the “original meaning” of the 10 Commandments, like America fight to be the academically defender of the “original meaning of the founding fathers” when molding our Constitution.  The church needs to “live” the 10 Commandments; Americans need to “live” the American dream or ideal.  Without “experiencing” the 10 Commandments or the American Dream in our lives, we never really “own” the vision or purpose of its “original meaning” no matter what that may be!

As teachers in the five fold in the 21^st Century Church, we need to allow those we teach to “own up” to their experiences of their faith in Jesus, not only “expressing” but “living” that faith.  True, that “experience” will be grounded in the written Word, the Bible.

What would you think Sunday mornings “church services” would look like if we unleashed the believers to share their “experiences” in all kinds of forms rather than listening to our academic exegesis on Jesus and other religious topics!  Could we handle a Sunday morning if it became a release time for believers to minister to one another, through one another, sharing with one another traditionally or creatively, than just being a music & sermon lead service?  What if……. Daydream for Jesus!

Retooling: Education Reform In Our Churches?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXVI

As a public school teacher it hit me this week that No Child Left Behind is killing the creativity of the American student from “experiencing” life and true learning.  We “teach about” subjects, so that they can reiterate correct answers on standardized tests which supposedly judge our worth and effectiveness as educators, but we do not allow the students to “experience” subjects any more.  I am teaching a poetry unit, being pressured by the Administration to teach about “figurative language” because it will be on the P.S.S.A. Test and is a State Standard, so I have vocabulary tests, worksheets, and reading assignments because the P.S.S.A. Test, oops, Assessment, is only TWO weeks away! I must get this material “in” before testing time.  In TWO weeks my students should be able to “reiterate”, “spew forth” the knowledge I gave them “about” figurative language, but in the process they never “experienced” it.  Due to the deadline, we didn’t have time for that!  We must get over all the State Standards prior to testing, for the results supposedly measuring their “Yearly Progress” in an effort to make EVERY student “Proficient”, no matter what academic ability they possess.

This week I had a “monkey wrench” thrown into my fast track of P.S.S.A. data driven lessons; my cousin, Greg Bachman, came in to my classroom, read his original “Poems My Cat Wrote”, explaining that shy people are great poets because they look inward, middle-schoolers are great poets because they know conflict, peer pressure, the power of relationships, topics the general population can relate to, reinforcing that everyone has a poem; they just need to write it down.  Students were fascinated as a poet “shared his personal stories” through the point of view of his cat in his poems, giving practical tips on how to “daydream” in school effectively (a novel concept), and then being “released” to experience the power of allowing that “daydream” to flow onto paper as their own unique poem. They EXPERIENCED Poetry! Not only that, they were “allowed” to daydream in school, something they already did, but to do it in a non-destructive manner. These “daydreamers” became focused because of “experiencing” the lesson.

The shy student blossomed producing powerful similes, majestic metaphors, awesome alliterations, creative forms of onomatopoeia, words that rhymed at the end of the line or in the middle, poems that followed form or broke “free” in verse.  Students, who did not have to recite the definitions of “figurative language” terms, produced figurative language in and through creative forms of poetry.  The P.S.S.A. Tests on Reading or Writing do not have sections for displaying one’s “creative experiences” through the application of figurative language, opting only for multiple-choice questions in an attempt to identify or interpret them.

The Church is not too far away from that model too!  Sermons professionally and formally teach “about” topics; Sunday School lessons basically do the same only through a layman. We talk about topics like “forgiveness”, “prayer”, “loving your neighbor”, the “Cross”, “redemption”, “salvation”, “sanctification”, etc. usually reiterating or spewing scripture passage after scripture passage to “justify” our “knowledge” of the topic so that it appears “Biblically based”.  But after the sermon or class, how many of our students can reiterate or re-spew those scriptures back to us without reading their notes if they took any?  The so called “Bible” teacher hopes their students will “apply” the head knowledge, scripture driven, lesson just taught, but never has a tool for measuring the success or failure of the lesson.  As a teacher we feel good if the lesson is well organized, scripture supported, well presented, and what appears to be well received by our passive listeners who never move and often never flinch when in their chairs.

I propose that the 21^st Century Church has to retool the way it looks at teaching and being a teacher.  We have taught “about” Jesus way too long!  We have taught “about” the Bible way too long! WE NEED TO EXPERIENCE JESUS, EXPERIENCE THE BIBLE!  We need to make the “historical” Jesus the “current” Jesus in my life.  We need to make the written word, the Bible, the living word, the Rhema word!  If our sermons or teachings do not allow our students or parishioners to “experience life in Jesus”, then “we have sinned”, for we have missed the mark! As powerful as reciting scripture is, if all our students, parishioners, can do is spew scripture mechanically but do not “live out” or “experience” those scriptures in their own lives, we have missed the mark. 

Americans are quick to judge the public schools as “failing schools” because of the results on “standardized tests” while “failing” to realized they are killing the creative spirit, the work ethic, the power of problem solving, the spirit and drive to excel that made America great, opting to only focus on the lower end of the bar to make “every student proficient” by what ever date.  Maybe we should also label most American church as “failing churches” because they are killing, or at least minimizing, the desire, nurture, and development of their common believers to “experience” their faith in Jesus, opting for the Western civilizations view of intellectual, academic, education of knowing “about” something rather than “experiencing” something.

I know my students will do well now on their P.S.S.A. test in figurative language, thanks to Greg Bachman, because they have now “experienced” it, “owned” it in their personal lives, and that ownership and experience will translate into the “knowing” the right answers on their test.  As a Church, we need to “experience” our personal faith in Jesus and own up to it before we can even understand corporately what it means to be the body of Christ. As the 21^st Century Church, we need to “experience” Jesus, the Rhema living Word, instead of just reciting the Logos written Word individually and corporately.  We need to quit talking “to” people about Jesus, but allow them to “experience” Jesus! That is the Church’s challenge as teachers for today!

Retooling: Who Should Know The Poor Better Than The Church?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXV

Jesus said that we will always have the poor, but he always hung out with the poor, the misfits of society, the outcasts.  His selection of the 12 men, every day people, to be his intimate disciples wasn’t very kosher compared to what a Jewish man had to do if he went through the rabbinical system of Jewish training and the weeding out of “undesirables”.  Even Mother Teresa found herself immersed in the poor, taxing her faith.  Who is responsible for taking care of the poor?

I just returned from an in-service day at my school district where we looked at the bias, prejudice, and stereotyping in our district as well as those facing poverty.  The poverty workshop made me think.  The presenter asked, “Recently, a family in our district had their house burned to the ground.  What resources do you know would be available to them?”  “The Red Cross” became the immediate response of the group, then “churches”, and after some pause of silence, “maybe the local community”. 

The first thing we thought about was what government agencies are available to meet this need.  Our first inclination was social services and the Red Cross.  “Church” came up, but what happens if the ones burnt out did not attend church?  Who becomes their advocate?  Of course the response, the “community”, made me question myself, “who is their community”?

The Christian faith is all about relationships, personally with our Savior, Jesus, and corporately with the Church, the body of believers in Jesus.  A church should be a community of believers.  If relationships are being built, it is a lot easier to reach out to our neighbor if we share the resources we have.

What resources does the church have?  Temporary shelter, food, and clothing met through a Benevolent Fund?  What about long term?  This is where the pastoral passion of service becomes effective, meeting every day needs with every day solutions while teaching every day spiritual principles of trusting in the Father to meet our needs while building up trust through faith.  The evangelistic spirit can bring hope, a newness, a rebirth after the devastation of a tragedy. The teaching spirit and prophetic spirit can work together by guiding one through life’s trials with spiritual principles, allowing the written Word, the Bible, to become the Rhema or living word.  The apostolic spirit can take one in need under his wing, under his covering, seeing over their circumstances, and releasing those to serve them who can best meet their needs.

If the Church is to have an impact with power and influence in the 21^st Century, the five fold thrust of ministry is a viable option!  Many different needs can be met through many different passions if done in unity with the purpose of service.

Retooling: What’s In Your Toolbox?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXIV

What’s in your toolbox?  Usually old tools, tools of stability, screw drivers, pliers, a hammer, a vice grip, a level, etc.  Recently specialty tools have invaded my box, special screw drivers with special tips, bent tools to reach in hard to get places, and multiuse tools.  Tools that were used on m 1971 Chevy Nova are useless on a new 2011 car.  If you buy an “ensemble yourself” piece of furniture, unique screws, bolts, and tools are included.  Why, as a church, do we still use “medieval tools” or even “last century tools” when facing the 21^st Century when we do church?  Why is the Church known as one of society’s institutions that does not embrace change quickly or effectively?  Only a few decades ago did the Roman Catholic Church allow mass to be done in a native tongue rather than in Latin, yet maintains the same structure for centuries?  “This is the way we have always done it,” is often the mantra for those who do not embrace change within the church.  Often the church boasts of rich “traditions” rather than effective ministry.  

So what should the Church’s toolbox contain if it is to be retooled?

Evangelist:  Instead of the old tool of mass evangelism as “Crusades” in sports arenas or special events held in church buildings, the retooled version may look like mass evangelism through social networking and the internet, but the power of personal evangelism through one on one communication and care is still the most effective.  In an age of impersonal electronic communication, actual one on one, face to face friendship and care is still the most powerful. Also the evangelistic tool must be a “creative” tool, being adaptable to new situations and change rather than already defined strategies to be copied.

Pastoral:  The term “pastor” will be retooled from being defined as a “professional Christian” to a passion or gifting to care for the development and nurture of believers toward being more Christ-like. Everyday believers can exhibit their “pastoral” gifting of service to help develop the new converts birthed by the evangelist.  It will be common believers reaching out to new and developing believers in an effort to grow together in to the maturity of Christ.

Teacher:  As an educator by profession, I have been taught and experienced that lectures are the most ineffective way to teach, particularly in an era where unlimited information is a click away on one’s computer. In an intellectual, data driven, test oriented, educational degree based society today, culturally and theologically the Western world needs to move away from teaching by lecture (sermons) “about” subjects to “experiencing” subjects by living, or actual application, of the principles to be learned.  Jesus never founded an intellectual theological institution to educate his followers, but he walked and talked with them personally for three years, teaching them kingdom principles for their practical lives. The sermon may become a relic of a tool replaced by field trips outside the established church building into the world the Church has been commissioned to serve.

Prophet:  Instead of thinking as a prophet as an isolated old testament figure hiding in the wilderness or causing waves that would want a king to banish him, or even an isolated new testament figure giving prophetic words, the new retooled prophet would look like a believer in Jesus Christ who has learned to listen to the small voice of the Holy Spirit, knows the heartbeat of the Father, and is willing to be obedient to what he has seen and heard.  Also the retooled prophet is not “isolated” from the body of Christ, but an integral part of the body of Christ by aiding through prophetic evangelism, aiding the pastoral effort through worship, prophetic teaching, and being the spiritual eyes and ears for the body as a whole.

Apostle:  Some teachers in Christian circles teach that the apostolic died when the last first century apostle physically died. I am sorry, but the Holy Spirit has resurrected the apostolic with power.  The apostolic will not be a “mantle of office” occupied by Senior Pastors or self proclaimed Church leaders, but a passion, a gifting, a point of view that would “see over” what the Holy Spirit is doing in the body of Christ, and encouraging and releasing the other four passions of giftings to prepare, equip, and develop Christians to be more Christ-like while bringing unity to the body of Christ, something the Church has not experienced in centuries.

So the tools in the Church’s toolbox may need restructuring for today’s specialized world, diverse cultures, and differences in a society that is beginning to think world wide instead of local.  Local corner churches with their spiral steeples are being replaced by practical multi-use buildings, or no buildings at all in a Facebook, MySpace, web sited, internet world.  Apple II E computers are dinosaurs, lap tops are being challenged by I-phones, and software changes yearly in a technological savvy world, yet the Church drags its feet to retool itself to meet this changing world.  We need to reevaluate as a Church what is in our toolboxes and how effective those tools are, then being open to add new, specialized tools to meet the needs of the 21^st Century generation.

Retooling: A Changing World; A Changing Church?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXIII

I remember the late 1960’s and early 1970’s as if it were yesterday.  It was a turbulent time.  I thought the moral fabric of America was not only being tested, but torn apart.  The jeans worn by the youth of the time, tattered, torn, and filled with holes, symbolized the fabric of America.  J. F. Kennedy, our President, Robert Kennedy, a Presidential candidate, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X all died by an assassin’s bullet while George Wallace became a quadriplegic.  Beatniks gave way to Hippies as America went from getting high on poetry and literature to getting high on LSD and other drugs as their heroes too began to fall and succumb from drug overdoses. Unlike the Women’s Suffrage movement at the beginning of the millennium, the Women’s Liberation Movement burnt bras and brandished breasts in a cause challenging the morals and structures that had defined the fabric of the American family and society.  Gays and Lesbians, for the first time took to the streets, coming socially “out of their closet” demanding rights and changes.  The Civil Right’s Movement not only showcased peacefully led, but violently received, demonstrations through peace marches, but also experienced riots and looting in the Watts area of Los Angeles leading to violence and the burning of cities across America.  Tens of thousands began marching in protest of the War in Vietnam, the first unpopular war, the first war America would come home defeated rather than the victors, a war defined by the tens of thousands of body bags returning America’s youth literally back to its native soil.  Music reflected a new mantra: “Parents, you don’t understand, for the times they are a changing,” to “If you aren’t with the one you love, then love the one you are with.”  The youth of America did not trust their government calling it the “Establishment”, watching its Vice President resign over a scandal, then its President step down in disgrace rather than be impeached because of the Watergate scandal only to be replaced by a the only President who would not be “elected” as a President or Vice President into office. The “Father Knows Best” TV show image of the typical American family gave way to Archie Bunker and “All In The Family”. Those were changing times!

In the midst of all this the Church tried to remain and appear to be a constant, steady, unmovable rock in the midst of what looked like a turbulent ocean, thwarting off the waves of cultural change that were breaking on its beaches.  The “Bible Belt” that ran through South was now faced its hypocrisy as the Church was exposed as one of the most discriminatory institutions in America with Black churches, white churches, but few if any racially mixed churches.  Even in the North, churches too displayed this division not only theologically, but racially.  Church life of two Sunday services, a mid-week service, choir practice, youth groups, and Bible Schools were yielding in influence for the social fabric of America to public school activities, Sunday soccer leagues, organized youth sporting events, the collapse of Sunday “Blue Laws” making Sunday shopping routine, NFC and NASCAR becoming the gods of Sunday afternoons rather than “visiting” or doing family activities.  Image is important to the “structure” of the institutional church, and it “appeared” to be a rock, but these societal waves were beginning to erode its influence.

What the institutional church feared the most were the waves from within its structure for change, which it felt it had the influence or control.  The wave of revival always is opposed by the institutional church, but eventually  erodes formal structures, and whose ripples affects not only Christendom, but the world.  Believers with an evangelistic spirit, wanting to reach those caught in this change, the lost, birthed the Charismatic Movement and the Jesus Movements.  Those concerned with the shepherding/pastoral spirit birthed the Shepherding Movement.  Teacher arose out of nowhere producing cassette “teaching tapes” for the masses to hear, spewing forth a multitude of doctrinal and theological differences.  The voice of the prophetic spirit began to arise, something new to an institution that had lost its “ears to hear”.  What was missing was the apostolic spirit to oversee all this, thus 20^th century revival was messy, producing many mistakes, even casualties. Yet in the midst of all of this, each of these “five fold spirits”, points of view, and passions influenced the Church during this time. These spirits changed the way the Church worships today, its music, its attitudes toward discrimination and prejudice, its way of viewing social injustice, and even in its structure as new churches were established but not under the banner of denominationalism.

All that was the last century, the 20^th century, but now we are in the 21^st Century.  How is the Church responding to: a  global world, opened up by the internet and world wide web? Social injustice locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally exposed by twenty-four hour world wide news networks and images from smart phones transmitted by ordinary people in the midst of conflicts?  the change of community from local “town meetings” and “town churches” to relationships built around Facebook and other social media tools?  starving people  who sought “foreign aide” from governmental relief organizations that have been cut back due to budget cuts and a collapsing world wide economy?   a strong Islamic influence? Eastern religions left their talons of religious influence in American society in the second half of the 20^th century, how will the Church face the Islamic influences of this century?  and a generation reading their Kindles, I-Pads, and I-phones rather than their King James, 1600 and something edition of the Bible?

Beautiful but empty cathedrals in Europe are visible epitaphs of the resistance to change of the Medieval Church to the changing Renaissance, Reformational Church movement of its time.  Beautiful but empty church buildings with their wonderful architecture and stained glass windows dot the American landscape have become the epitaph of a Church unwilling to face change in our generation.  Our mega-churches, loosely formed bonds between institutional religious groups, and over all church structures too will fall and crumble, leaving only beautiful but empty tombs if the Church doesn’t embrace change now.

I propose that the 20^th Century Church has seen the evangelistic birth of all five passions and points of view of the five fold during its century.  Now it is time for the 21^st century Church to embrace them, allow the Holy Spirit to develop them bringing maturity to individual believers in Christ-likeness and unity as a body of believers to prepare the Church for the Lord’s return.  The Church is to be “without spot and wrinkle” for Jesus’ return. The 21^st Century is a time for the Church to face its “spot and wrinkle” remover, through the Holy Spirit, and through the five fold.

Retooling: From Child To Adult; The Church Growing Up

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXXI

This past week, our local pastor taught from Titus 2, exhorting what older men and women and the younger men should do, their roles and responsibilities.  There were six bullets of what older men should do, five bullets with five sub-bullets for older women, only one for young men, and young women weren’t even mentioned.  The only thing for young men was “self control”.  I joked with a friend that as an older man more is expected of us, and for a young man it is controlling his testosterone level!  Older women are to guard their young ladies from these young men! We all laughed. 

But as I thought about it later, I realized that growing up has its challenges and its benefits.  There are men in their 30’s, some even older, who still play video games all day and are going nowhere. They need to “grow up”.  Often the only difference between a father and his son is the price of their toys. The father’s need to “grow up”.  The Bible says, “Once I was a child, and thought as a child, but now I have put childish things away.”  There is a time to put away those childish things and “grow up”.

If the 21^st Century Church wants to be effective, then many of its believers need to “grow up”.  We call ourselves “children of God” and often revel in remaining a “child” in the process called sanctification, or spiritual growth.  I once was in a small group made up of six adults and fourteen children.  Most of our efforts were taking care of the fourteen children rather than continual development of the six adults.  The church often finds itself in the same situation, spending most of its time and energy on the “children of God” rather than helping them in their spiritual growth toward “the maturity of Christ”, in their effort to be more Christ-like.

The church needs a new mindset on how to “develop” a Christian from childhood to adulthood.  Educational and intellectual knowledge is not enough. I truly believe Ephesians 4 holds the key to this development of “equipping, preparing, the saints, the believers, for the work of the service” in an effort to bring unity in the Body of Christ and Christ-like maturity to the individual believer.

The 21^st Century Church needs to take the birthing process of an evangelist, to the nursery and preschool care of a new believer through a pastor/shepherd, through spiritual adolescence with the teacher and prophet, to the release of adulthood through an apostle.  “Growth toward Release” is the goal of the five fold in developing a believer.  Like a child who trusts and is dependent on his father for his care and development, the Christian believer trusts the Church for his care and development in teaching him how to trust their “Father”, God, as Jesus taught and modeled throughout his life.  If the Church teaches a believer to “trust” the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Jesus Christ, the Spirit of the Father God, the believer can then be released  to do the work of the service because he is prepared, equipped.

Instead of focusing on programs, church services, styles of worship, staffing needs, and doctrinal differences like the church has done in the last two centuries, the 21^st Century Church needs to focus on the preparation, the equipping, of Christian believers, their development from being a “child” of God to being “mature” in the likeness of Christ.

Retooling: Service Based; Not Service Driven

Five Fold Must Be Relational – Part XXX

I have shared the five fold as a point of view or passion, that which drives a person, but the bottom line is that the five fold is all about relationships, relationships between people with different passions for the unity of the body and the maturity of the saints.  The five fold is to “prepare the saints for the work of the service.”  Service is central to the five fold, but the dark side could be if a principle that is “service based” becomes “service driven” rather than relational.

Luke 10:38-42 records the “service driven” Martha actually complaining to Jesus about her sister, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself?”  He replies, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

What was the better is the basic principle of how the five fold must work: Mary was sitting at the feet of Jesus listening, building a relationship.  Mary was so “busy serving” she did not take the time to listen to the voice of Jesus.  In John 11:21 little miss organizer, who likes to have her ducks in order, confronts Jesus over her brother’s, Lazarus’, death, “Lord, if you would have been here, he would not have died.”  She had even prepared for Lazarus’ recovery if Jesus had come. What she had forgotten is that God majors in “preparation”, and she could have listened to Him in the flesh if she would have taken the time.  God sent the prophets to prepare for Jesus’ coming.  He sent John the Baptist to “prepare” the way. Like Mary, I would not have sent a “hippie” who eats locust and honey but a “learned” rabbi who had studied the Word, but God knows better.

In John both girls go and meet Jesus, but their encounter is different. Martha confirms her belief of the resurrection and her confession of Jesus as the Messiah; Mary weeps, moving Jesus to Lazarus’ tomb producing his actual resurrection.

The five fold, as outlined in Ephesians 4, is all about “preparing the saints for the work of the service”, the Martha syndrome, yet anchored in the relational, the Mary syndrome, as it is to bring unity in the body and develop the saints into maturity of being Christ-like.

If the 21^st Century Church is to be retooled, it has to be anchored in the relational: 1) their “personal” relationship with Jesus Christ and Father God (John 3:16); and 2) their relationship with each other, their brothers in the Lord, their neighbors, and others (I John 3:16).  Only through those relationships, the Mary syndrome, will the fruit of service, the Martha syndrome, be evident.

Retooling: Is Leadership The Question Of Control?

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXIX

In the world of church politics, who controls you local congregation?  Are you under a strong pastor format where he dictates how God is leading him thus the rest should follow?  Does you church “board” wheel in the power checking and directing everything your pastor is or should be doing?  Or does your church “board” rubber stamp the pastor’s efforts to show support?  Does your pastor surround himself with “yes” men or with men who will “sharpen” him as steel, challenging him, questioning him, yet guiding him and backing him? Does your leadership team “micromanage” everything and everybody, or they free wheeling allowing almost anything to happen?  How is one chosen to be on a board: through elections, through appointments, through offices held, through power and influence, through financial contributions?  Church is often run like a business, so are their businessmen on the board or just spiritual advisors? 

“Who really is in control of your church?”  That is the question the 21^st Century Church has to ask itself, for from the answer to that question will come their whole format, structure, and purpose of leadership.  Is the pastor in control? Should he be?  Just because you pay a man financially for his efforts does that make him a leader? There is usually one paid staff member for 100 parishioners, volunteers, non-paid participants in a local church. What leadership is in the 99?  Pastor/Parish Committees have always been a pain to most pastors, for they can discipline, fire, or turn on any pastor if they wish.  Most board meetings, pastor/parish committee meetings, leadership meetings turn into business meetings if the church has allowed itself to become an institution.  “Taking care of business” is at the top of the agenda.

Is there any other options out there that the 21^st Century Church could exam that would be totally different in its effort to “retool” itself.  When an industry “retools” itself there is drastic changes:  middle level management looses their jobs, workers are furloughed, laid-off, or released. A total restructuring occurs.  Like I Corinthians 5:17 records, “the old is gone; the new has come”.  The long assembly line of humans is replaced by robotics run by only a few engineers as productivity and profit margins increase, all because of the retooling effort.  The financial structures have been attached, re-evaluated, and new priorities in the budget set while lower priorities are cut.  The “retooling” process is never a pretty one, nor a pain free one, but usually produces uncertainty, doubt, and opposition at first because it advocates change.

So what could cause a violent change in the effort of “retooling” the 21^st Century Church, a change that would produce an initial response of uncertainty, doubt, and opposition?  I propose that it would be a change in the leadership structure, the leadership paradigm of the pre-21^st century era.  Usually change comes painfully slow in the institutional church; ask any Roman Catholic.   Industry left off the most important part of I Corinthians 5:17, for it reads “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone; the new has come.”  The secret of “retooling” the Church is found “in Christ”.  If the “retooling” is not founded in Jesus Christ, it is of no use.

I propose to propositions to examine. First, industry brings in an outside C.E.O. to examine the current structure, then hack away at it to retool it, no matter how many jobs are lost, or profits temporarily diminish in an effort to “save the company”.  Who is the figure to lead the “retooling” of the 21^st Century Church?  The Answer: The Holy Spirit!!!  But again, as an individual and as a corporate body the question arises: Can we trust the Holy Spirit who will probably slash all the unnecessary structures, mindsets, etc. that we, the church, have accumulated into what we think is “church” today.  Again “If anyone [any structure, any program, any position of influence] is in Christ, he [it] is a new creation.”  Like industry, those in the current structure who like the old way, the old time religion, will meet these changes with uncertainty at first, then begin to doubt their validity, and finally oppose them.  The church has a historical track record of opposing any change.  In fact I judge the validity of any renewal or reformation movement by the opposition it gets from the church of its time.

Second, the structural change I propose “in Christ” that would be a totally “new creation” would be five fold leadership model of “service” designed to “equip or train the saints” for “the work of service” in an effort to “bring unity to the body” while thirsting and hungering for more “knowledge of the Son of God” in an effort to help every individual believer in Jesus and the Church as a whole to be more “mature” striving for the “full measure of Jesus Christ” in our lives.   We need to look at this proposition in more details in up coming blogs to see the effectiveness it would have on the 21^st Century Church, and the opposition it will face from the existing church.

Retooling: Redirecting Our Focus

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXVIII

So where are individuals to redirect their focus?  How is the Church to redirect its focus? Good questions with tough answers.  Christians and churches need to realize that their focus and what they do with it will have eternal consequences.  If as Christians we believe that accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior is our “new birth” spiritually, and our time on earth is “working out our salvation”, or “sanctification”, or spiritual development until our fulfillment with Jesus in heaven, then we have a lot of “working out” to do during our life time. How do we do that as a Church?

This is why I am so adamant about the influence of the five fold on the 21^st Century Church.  It provides the tools for total birth, development, and fulfillment during one’s life here on earth.  The evangelist’s passion is to win the lost.  “You must be born again,” is his plea, then finding ways into leading one into this new birth, this new life in Jesus.  The pastor/shepherd then is driven to “walk the spiritual walk” with them, caring for their development into being Christ-like.  Jesus spent three years “walking” with his disciples through their spiritual development, teaching them of His relationship to His Father, setting forth kingdom of God principles that they would use for the rest of their lives before releasing them into apostleship upon his leaving earth.

The teacher wants to anchor the spiritual development upon the Truths in the Word of God, the Bible, while the prophet is eager to teach a developing believer into what it means to be in the “fullness of Jesus”, both developing one toward maturity in Jesus.  Finally a believer in Jesus Christ can offer an apostolic covering of over seeing one’s personal and corporate spiritual development, calling upon the other four passions and giftings to augment a believer’s growth toward maturity in Jesus Christ.

All this preparation is at the expense of the final “releasing” of the believer to “go out” in the power of the Holy Spirit, grounded on the written Word, the Bible, and activated into a Living, Rhema, Word of “service” while continually growing in the maturity of the fullness of Christ.  If it took Jesus three years to develop his disciples, and Paul several years to develop a church in a city before releasing them for “service”, it will take us several years of care, nurture and development before we too must release those under our care to exercise their passions, develop their own character, and continue to move forward toward the maturity in Christ.  The five fold is not only for preparation, but also for releasing.

I know of no local church, personally, that trains everyone in their congregation to “serve”, then releases them to actually do it, to actually serve. That is one of the biggest challenges facing the 21^st Century Church: the process of nurturing, developing, then releasing believers in “the work of the service”.  To do so will take a major retooling.  We as a Church must accept the fact that we must do “church” differently if we are to be effective in this century and in the times to come.

Retooling: Raising The Bar Of Expectations

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXVI

In public education I have been told that students will perform better if you raise the bar of expectation.  You only get what you expect.  I have seen expectations erode over the years as a public school teacher in the name of good grades, honor rolls, and parental approval.  It is a common belief that if you lower the expectations, you reduce the chance of failure, yet many still fail. Why?  Because we do not expect much from them, thus motivation dwindles, replaced by student “entitlement”.  Students expect passing grade without the effort, motivation, nor work that is needed to successfully achieve. They feel “passing” is a “right”, not a “privilege” or something “to be earned”.  As we have watered down expectations, we, in the United States, have seen student performance erode to new, lower levels, falling drastically behind other countries who still value education, motivation, and aren’t afraid to keep higher expectations.

I have seen this influence the church too!  My question to the leadership of the 21^st Century Church is, “What do you expect from those who make up the Body of Christ?  As long as there is staff to cover the church’s needs, then not much is expected except for the finances to cover the paid staff’s salaries and benefits.  That is where most churches are today. 

What should we, the Church, expect from each other as members of the Body of Christ?  Should we raise the bar of expectations, or just allow people to filter in and out of our churches according to their needs, wants, and whims?  How can those believers who expect the church to “serve” them be changed into ones we can expect to serve others?  That is raising the bar.  How do we get people to raise the bar of service if they expect to be served and have no idea how to serve others? 

This is where the five fold is a necessity for the 21^st Century Church, because the purpose of the five fold according to Ephesians 4 is to “prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”(NIV)  To raise the bar, the Church needs to “prepare” God’s people for “works of service”.  We need to birth, care, nurture, and develop believers into “servers”.  It is a process!  We need to do this until “we all reach unity in the faith”, and today with all the divisions in the body of Christ that would have to be a miracle, a “God Moment”!  It seems not to be short term, nor close to fulfillment. The knowledge that needs to be taught, trained, and developed in a believer is not “academic”, but “in the knowledge of the Son of God.”  It is “knowing”, “experiencing” God in our everyday lives. All this caring, training, and developing for the purpose of becoming “mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”  You cannot raise the bar any higher than that!

It take the Church, the entire body of Christ, to do this development of spiritual character of service in each and every believer, that is why you need the five different points of view and passions, working together, to create this unity, this knowledge, and this maturity.  No Sr. Pastor, nor paid staff, can attain the bar that has been raised this high.  It takes the entire body, you, me, and all our other brothers and sisters in the Lord together in the effort. The challenge of the 21^st Century Church is to transform the reputation of “pew sitters” to “active participants” of service.  How do you do this?  You do it through birthing, caring, nurturing, and developing each and ever believer toward the goal of knowing their God and maturing into the full measure of Jesus Christ. This is what the five fold is all about!

I think if the Church began working toward this raised bar, they would see those believers who love Jesus respond in service.  If the leadership allows their sheep to be released to serve, there would be an evangelistic explosion and development in the Church. 

But the cry could be that no man can attain that status.  Wrong!  There was one man who did, Jesus. God sent Jesus, His Son, to the earth to prove that man can do it when if the “fullness of Jesus Christ”.  He then released the Holy Spirit to the earth to teach man the process of how to attain this knowledge and maturity.  Until the Church releases and allows the Holy Spirit to do what he is suppose to do through those he has been training to do “the works of service”, the bar will remain low, and the response and fruit minimal.

Retooling: Bringing Back Anticipation, Excitement, and Life

The 21^st Century Retooling of the Church – Part XXIV

I recall going to a Prayer and Praise meeting in the mid 1970’s in somebody’s home where you actually “anticipated” that the Holy Spirit would show up.  You never knew in what form or how he would manifest himself, what gifts would be released, if healings would become present. All you “knew” was that everyone who attended “anticipated” the Holy Spirit’s Presence to be in their midst, producing great “excitement”. 

We were amazed that there was a spontaneous Prayer and Praise gathering somewhere in the county where I lived every morning, afternoon, and evening of every day of the week.  Most often they were in people’s personal homes.  There was no set agenda to their gatherings.  Only one thing could be assured: Not only would believers in Jesus gather; but the Holy Spirit would show up in their midst. 

I attended on several Friday nights at the home of a man who had polio. He would sleep in an iron lung in his bedroom, yet come out and lead singing at the Prayer and Praise session in his home.  I lead a group for six weeks around a campfire prior to a local evangelistic crusade. There I witnessed testimonies, sharing of scriptures that had personally touched people, a women read a poem she had written bringing finality of her grieving process, and the gifts of the spirit being released on the last night.  You found yourself “excited” about wanting to come back each week because you “anticipated” that the Holy Spirit would show up bringing “excitement” while producing “life”.  Amazingly none of these spontaneous groups were directly under the banner of the institutional Church of its time.  They were all created out of the need for spontaneity, out of the need to find an outlet to express oneself spiritually, out of a hunger to know God, have an intimate vibrant relationship with Him, and actually see Him work in lives of common people, out of the need to find “life” within a church structure.  Unfortunately, most of these groups dissipated when the local churches felt they needed to “oversee” and eventually control the activities that these groups advocated.  With the control, which opposed the freedom that had created the anticipation, excitement, and life within the group became stagnation bringing eventual death.

One exception came at the Lower Octorara Presbyterian Church in Parkesburg, Pennsylvania where the Rev. Jim Brown, set aside his traditional liturgical church service format, practices, and traditions for an open Prayer and Praise format on Saturday nights for over a twenty year period where people from all over the state, country, and world packed out his facility in a worship atmosphere lead by “unplanned” special music and personal testimonies from those who attended.  I attended several of these sessions the last year that they were held and marveled at how the church building was always filled to capacity, the singing vibrant, and the testimonies original and powerful.  Before the service ever began, you could feel the excitement and the anticipation of what the Holy Spirit would do that night.

The 21^st Century Church needs to retool, rethink, re-evaluate establish mindsets of how it does worship.  Many churches have professional worship teams and choirs that sound awesome, but have lost the spontaneity that small group worship sessions once harbored. Well orchestrated programs have replaced the “anticipation” of the “unexpected” that the Holy Spirit brings.    Professionally delivered sermons by Senior Pastors and staff have replaced the spontaneous sharing of personally testimonies of common believers that want to share what God is doing personally in their lives.  With everything so well planned by the leadership of the church, there is nothing to “anticipate”.  Everything is predictable. The excitement is gone because nothing is required of the common believer in a well scripted service except his “financial” contribution.  Although the music and sermon were excellent, the parishioners, the common believers, leave the service with little if any spiritual life or renewal because nothing was expected of them.  Leadership did not anticipate their involvement since they produced the worship and teaching atmosphere, and the service fulfilled the needs of “release” musically for the musicians on the platform and intellectually for the preacher, but did not necessarily fulfill the needs of the congregation because they were not afforded the opportunity to be “released” in their gifting or passions.

The 21^st Century Church has to examine what “releasing” means: releasing the “believer” to be what he has been developed and equipped to be in Jesus. Allowing this releasing to be done in a safe, loving, and developing atmosphere where mistakes can be made and lessons can be learn while one grows spiritually in “their faith walk and journey”. 

Although my local church believes it has made changes, when my children, now adults living away from home, return to visit, they claim “nothing has changed.”  It is the same predictable “order” of worship as when they were a child. The faces of the clergy who gives the sermon and the worship team who plays the instruments have changed, but the agenda is the same. The only thing different is the “style” of music played, reflecting the current worship leader’s bent of leadership, or the delivery by the current pastor in his sermon.  It is “assumed” that the Holy Spirit is already there, not anticipating His Presence.  There is little excitement in a “planned, orchestrated” worship service because there is no participation of the congregation except to sing “word-fed” choruses on overhead projectors or hymnals in traditional settings, give an offering, and sit quietly, acting attentive during the delivery of a well prepared professionally delivered sermon. Little arises from the soul or from the heart of the common believer because very little is “required” from him.

The 21^st Century Church must “retool” how it does “worship” by allowing, an actually advocating the releasing of the gifting, talents, compassion, and passions of the believers in their midst, allowing them to spontaneously give back song, testimony, inspiration, and scriptures that have touched their lives.  It needs to find a way to allow church services to be “believer” or “body of believers” driven, not clergy and staff driven.