… a fledgling theology of worship leadership

I am sure that all of us have engaged in word searches in our efforts to understand the complexity of the meaning of worship.  My personal favorite is ‘proskuneo.’ ‘Proskuneo’-to kiss like a dog licking the master’s hand, to fawn or crouch, to prostate oneself in homage, to reverence, to adore, worship.

There is something special in this imagery, probably because I am a dog lover. My female Golden Retriever, Tasha waits for me at the gate almost an hour before I am scheduled to come home. Long before my car is in sight, she seems to sense my presence and bounds to the back door of our home howling with affection. She is never content until I sit with her and allow her to smother me with sloppy dog kisses. She truly is a ‘daddy’s girl.’ Reaching forward we seek to place the face of God in our hands and gently kiss His face. Worship is about relationship with God and lavish affection as an expression of that relationship.

The major differential that occurs as we seek to worship God is the aspect of ‘kingship.’ Tasha in her lavish affection of me has no thought of homage or reverence. I am simply her peer friend who happens to walk on two legs and not four. Kingdom worship is about the King. Bishop Wright comments,  “When you gaze in awe, admiration, and wonder at something or someone, you begin to take on something of the character of the object of your worship” [1].  As worship leaders and worshippers this should be our life long journey, to take on the character of God.

“In the beginning God” [2].  The very next word is ‘created.’ God literally bursts onto the pages of recorded history as Creator. Everything about the nature and character of God hinges upon the story of Creation.  My desktop image depicts the Orion Nebula; absolutely spectacular in beauty, majesty and complexity. When I look closely I can literally see Gods hand molding the heavens.  We carry the image of God, the image of creativity. Dan Wilt makes a comment “In our worship we are called to create, to reflect, to relate and to tell a story”[3]. Our call to create is from the creator. Not just musicians but also every human on the planet bear the image of the creator and are a creative being.
For worship leaders our main task is to tell stories of the creation (old & New). Wright comments, “Because Christian worship is the celebratory praise and adoration of God the creator, one of its key tasks is to tell, in a thousand different ways the story of creation and new creation.”[4]

In essence worship leaders are creative storytellers, our stories need to be crafted, inspired, worked on with one significant aim, to draw humanity into relationship with the Creator.

Wrapping up and thinking about where this leaves us I couldn’t honestly put it any better than one of our fellow sojourners, Matte Downey. Our call as worship leaders is to, “Come and listen to the story. Come and see where my life is pointing. Come and hear the vibration of the rumblings of redemption. Come and jump into the story with both feet; put the whole weight of your soul behind each step. Add your voice, your laments and your longings and your laudings, to this community choir. Together, we will become the whole earth, filled with the glory of the Lord.[5]

[1] Wright, NT. Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. New York: HarperCollins, 2006 p148
[2] Genesis 1:1 (New International Version)
[3] Dan Wilt, Essentials Blue: Online Studies in Worship Theology and Biblical Worldview p62.
[4] Wright, NT. Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense. New York: HarperCollins, 2006 p149
[5] Matte Downey, Essentials Blue, Week 5 entry on 10 February 2009 at 16:24

Where would you be if … ?

Listening to a friend and watching her tell story after story of how she pursued her dream really touched me. I have to say not in any positive way, in fact quite the opposite. It reminded me of a life wasted. Frittered away chasing someone else’s dreams or worse, just settling for something because my parents wanted it, and angry as due to my laziness and arrogance I was to easily swayed to say no, I want to be me. I was never rough and tough, swaggering about like some jerk. I was the opposite, caring considerate and kind. I wish I knew how to redeem that innocence, time passes so quickly and being reconciled with the man I wanted to be seems such a distant pipe dream. I wanted to write songs, plays, stories … what for, what does it matter? That time is past, nothing more than a minuscule dot on the horizon of life.

What hope is there? If it’s there I just can’t find it. It’s like being a boy and imagining it to be so, only to wake to find that you were dreaming … and yet you never do know, because tomorrow night you could dream again. My dreams are purged in the cycle of a cruel society that clamors and grinds you into “being something” or somebody. Things I am good at bring me little life save that which a pay check provides. (And I am grateful for that) I am madder than hell that no one was there for me, I hear my friend describing about being an apprentice to a playwright in residence  … my heart ached that some one would even have taken the time to encourage the gift that was within her and more than that to put feet to that encouragement and actively walk with her through a journey. I find that I do that for as many people I can, it’s almost like I want to do for them what was never done for me. Does it make the pain go away and make up for lost time? Hell no, not even close! To be honest I wonder if I live my life vicariously through those I encourage, I don’t know.

That’s enough for now, its getting to deep for me to concentrate and write at the same time. Sorry for such a dark passage but it’s where I am at right now.

Power & Authority

The purpose of this piece is to begin to process my shattered illusions of what leadership and community within a church body might look like should our chosen vehicle of leadership be healthy and whole. The greatest challenge that the church can face is how we, the body of Christ choose to deal with Power & Authority. Not to be confused with the power and authority that Jesus left us through his Holy Spirit but the power and authority we exert between each other.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer concludes that spiritual abuse occurs when:

“… the superior power of one person is consciously or unconsciously misused to influence profoundly and draw into his spell another individual or a whole community.”

I want to begin by quoting one of my favourite ‘bloggers’, Robbymac. This is Robbie’s response to a post from another blogger as she opened up the hornets nest of ‘spiritual abuse.”

“My first pastorate ended in a way that is eerily similar to what you have described here. The abuse, the lies, the manipulations, the cowardice of the other leaders who looked the other way, and the gullibility of the congregation that bought the whole spin-doctoring — hook, line and sinker.

I was a total mess for a year at least. The biggest casualty was my trust in other leaders and “mature” Christians.

One of the associate pastors tried to convince me that my leaving was like a divorce, because there was a split in the relationships.

I replied that it was more like a rape — I had been violated and then, like many rape victims in the literal sense, was falsely accused of being the problem.

It’s far too prevalent. But God is merciful and gracious, and brings healing to those who have been through these dark waters. I can also bear witness to His restorative power in my life.”

At the heart of a lot of issues arising from disagreements to spirited dialogue is the application of power and authority. I hope to set out some practical distinctions of healthy and unhealthy applications or situations where the dynamics of power and authority are used.

Despite a litany of documented stories of how devastating the abusive use of power and authority can be, the concepts of power and authority are not to be considered as bad or evil. After Jesus resurrection, as he gave the Great Commission he said in Matthew 28:18 – “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Lets explore these two concepts and hopefully seek a more practical approach to there use within our Christian community.

“The sole advantage of power is that you can do more good”
~ Baltasar Gracian

Power in and of itself is inert, like an automatic weapon sitting on a coffee table. It is not the automatic weapon that will kill someone; rather it’s the person who squeezes the trigger. That person activates the power. Or maybe a more benign analogy would be beneficial…a car battery full of electrical charge remains inert until you specifically engage the positive and negative terminals in some kind of electrical loop, then the power flows.

Like it or not power pervades every aspect of our lives. We live together, work together, shop together, worship together, and play together. In all these settings we are with other people whose feelings, views, desires, goals, and values maybe different from ours. When we come together, it is natural that we influence and are influenced by each other. Power is the potential to influence one another for good or for evil, be a blessing or a scourge.

“The measure of a man is what he does with power”
~ Pittacus of Mytilene

The journey between coercion and trust describes and ever-changing continuum on how power is used. Ideally all power should be used within a trust dynamic rather than coercion. But we would be fooled into thinking that all coercive application of power is unavoidable. Times of extreme crisis often necessitate the coercive use of power in order to diminish the crisis.  I have a friend who is a hostage negotiator with the RCMP; his job is to build a relationship with the aggressor, gain his or her trust in an attempt bring about the peaceful resolution of the problem. For the most part hostage negotiations are very successful. But, sometimes the mitigation of the situation is left in the hands of the team sniper.

Power therefore seems to be exercised in three specific ways:

1. Coercive power usually utilized through fear.
2. Transactional power; usually exercised within a framework of “I have something to exchange for your time and effort.”
3. Trust earned power; utilized by someone others believe in. They willingly and wholeheartedly give themselves to what is asked of them.

Jesus uses power when he arrived at the Temple in Jerusalem.

John Ch2:12-22
12: After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days. 13: When it was almost time for the Jewish Passover, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14: In the temple courts he found men selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. 15: So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple area, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the moneychangers and overturned their tables. 16: To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn my Father’s house into a market!”

This Gospel account suggests that Jesus’ driving out of the moneylenders was a pre-meditated action. He went up to the Temple and was appalled at what he found. He then made a whip from cords and drove the merchants and their cattle from the Temple area, and overturned the tables of the moneychangers.  What does this tell us about Jesus’ use of power? In what situations might we be prepared to adopt a similar approach?

The challenge of handling power appropriately has remarkable similarities to the challenge of working on the continuum of leadership. On the one side we have hierarchical top down leadership and on the other we have servant leadership. As leaders do we not live in the situational flux of finding the best place on the leadership continuum to operate? Perhaps a discussion left for another day!

Coercive or transactional power becomes a barrier to the community Jesus died to create, and actually a barrier to healing and growth. We can’t truly express love from the basis of coercive or transactional power. Love requires mutuality. I can’t receive your love if I believe myself to be inferior to you. I can receive many other things from you, but until I see myself as somehow worthy, I cannot receive your love.

In 1 Cor.9:19-23. Paul describes his freedom, but then his voluntary giving up of his rights and making himself a slave to all. This passage shows the parallelism of Hebrew thought. “To the Jews I became as a Jew.. to those who are without law, as without law..” Then Paul closes, “To the weak I became weak.” He does not say, “To the strong I became strong.” Paul has grasped the essence of the upside down kingdom. He has understood the meaning of Philippians 2: God emptied Himself and entered our world, making himself weak and vulnerable. He gave up power and became nothing for our sakes.

Power differences are also expressed in our roles, structures and programs. And these things are further enforced by private offices, titles, and buildings. I’m not interested in ‘dissing’ those in ‘full-time’ ministry; some of the best people I know serve on staff positions in churches. But we have to be aware of how position and the inappropriate use of power limit our ability to impact our world.

The poor are used to being helped. They are used to deferring to people in power. They are used to taking orders, being pricked and prodded and learning to “keep off the grass.” They learn how to play by our rules and appear to fit in, without ever really trusting us and becoming vulnerable. And they are highly sensitive to symbols: desks and offices and large buildings. The way to build trust is to get on their turf. We have to empty ourselves and become weak.

Max Weber (1864-1920) is considered to be the father of modern sociology. Weber offers an important distinction concerning power. Power is “the ability to coerce.” It doesn’t matter if that kind of power is used. It is present and pervasive in certain roles and functions, and usually backed up by physical tools and rites. A Police Officer pulls you over for ‘speeding’; you aren’t likely to question his right or his power. He has a handgun strapped to his side for a reason. Behind his action lies the ability to use force.

“The problem of authority is the most fundamental problem that the Christian Church ever faces.”
–J.I. Packer

Much of the Christian teaching on the subject of spiritual authority attempts to reconcile natural authority to the spiritual realm. But it just doesn’t work. It tends to create totalitarianism. It is responsible for the traditional thinking that spiritual authority is:

1. A position held that is governing and controlling others and
2. Measured by quantity (i.e., the number of people over whom they have power, the size of the corporation they manage, their income level, etc.).

But this is nothing more than natural authority renamed. It is not true spiritual authority.

The mixing of natural authority into spiritual authority has made unclear the true nature of spiritual authority. It causes men and women to feel the need to be in full-time ministry in order to be “significant,” because having a church fulfills their need for authority. As a result, there is no end in sight to the startup of more and more small churches as men and women struggle to realize their twisted view of spiritual authority. And because quantity is the measure of such authority, there is no hope of unity, because those engaged in full-time ministry must then compete with each other for members in order to increase the size of their own church, which, in turn, increases his own authority. With natural authority, the winner is the one with the biggest piece of pie.

Could this really be what God intended spiritual authority to become? Of course not! This is actually the result of the lack of understanding of true spiritual authority. Spiritual authority is not about power or rule. It is about serving. It is measured not in the quantity it controls but in the extent of personal sacrifice. Spiritual authority is the opposite of natural authority in almost every respect.

Throughout the Old Testament, there was no direct access to God. God did not speak directly to His people but through the law and prophets. Men were appointed as priests to represent the needs of God’s people. In addition, God did not work directly in the lives of His people, so they were incapable of transformation. They would never be anything more than what they were at birth. In the Old Testament, spiritual authority came through men who spoke for God as prophets or who represented the people to God as priests. It was a pyramid of authority that had God at the top followed by His governmental and religious leaders. The people of God were at the bottom.

In the New Testament, people no longer need to go through men to have direct access to God (And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom. Matthew 27:51). In the New Testament, God does speak directly to His people. Under this testament, God’s people no longer need men to represent their needs to God. They are able to “come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need (Heb 4:16).” The roles that men once filled and the spiritual authority they once provided now belong to God who works in the heart of every believer.

Wonderful to say Amen too but how does this all work out in practice. Rather tongue in cheek I would say that the historical church has consistently failed its “merit badge’ for working out what true spiritual authority is or is not.  That said, lets take a step back and ask the big picture question:

So what is the nature of Authority?

“Authority” is not easy to pin down. Yet, interesting conclusions result from careful examination of the structural options for authoritative power. There are four variant meanings to authority.

The first variant is the commander, the chief, the king. This is the one who can and does command obedience to specific directives. Obedience is exacted because of duty. A clearly directs B: This type of authority rarely exists. Perhaps when a person has a gun to your head; but, even then, often the one who holds the trigger is a servant of the one who owns the gun.

The second type of authority is that which is given, assigned, delegated to another. In this case, power is dependent on an outside source (i.e. X) to which both A and B are obedient. Here X is the ultimate authority that is manifested by A for B. It is important to note that B is responsive to X through A.

This same type of delegation of authority applies to when A has been given authority by X in a specific field. This field can be administrative (i.e. city transit authority) or academic (i.e. noted authority). It is still true that A is the intermediary – middleman – of power for X over B.

The third type of authority is distinctive. The third type of authority lies in the realm of rules, guides and precedents. The idea here is that some pre-existing statements dictate behavior. These prior conditions direct everyone in the same way. In other words, if B has access to the same information, he would be forced to follow the same course of action. However, since B is not able to keep up with all possible rules or precedents, there are acceptable authorities (A) that remind and represent them (a good example is a police officer). In this case X operates directly on everyone, but is explicitly represented by A.

Any types of justification or grounds for action operate in the same manner.

Fourth and finally, authority that derives from persuasion or confidence arising from prior experience is an authority that in actuality rests on the one being commanded. In this case, B empowers A. Note carefully the next diagram:

Here B gives power to A, which is then used in turn to command B. This form of authority is a different form of delegated authority. Understand this point closely. Here is where the crux of the issue of spiritual authority in the modern world as we see in our preliminary definition of spiritual authority.

Therefore if you obey because me you must, I have power. If you obey me because you want to, I have authority. Jesus, unlike Pilate or Herod, did not speak with power, but as “one having authority.” Max Weber says that all authority comes from love and sacrifice. The more sacrifice, the more authority.

Personally I would take this description of authority much, much further, to a place where I would offer that the only real authority we operate under is authority that has been ‘willingly given’ to us by those we seek to serve.

Changing directions a little bit and looking not to the authority we might carry with those we seek to serve. Lets look at what authority we have given by the Father.

John 10:17-18:
“For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. 18 “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”

Not only that he chose to sacrifice for love, but also that His Father initiated this sacrifice. And reflects the nature of the Father, since Jesus said if we’ve seen Him, we’ve seen the Father.

I believe we will only have spiritual authority in the things the Father has initiated. Our own initiation (no matter how well-intentioned, no matter how “good”) will go absolutely nowhere. And we only have spiritual authority to the degree that we love, and are willing to lay aside our own interests for the interests of the other. All authority is based on consent. We choose who we allow to influence us, and we do so wisely if we only do so with those who demonstrate love and self-sacrifice toward us (and vice-versa, we can only expect to influence through spiritual authority those whom we love selflessly).

The Philippians passage gives an added dynamic. Jesus emptied himself (5-7) and was obedient to God to the death, even death on a Cross. Therefore (v 9) God has highly exalted him. His Lordship is based on the Cross, on His loving sacrifice. “Therefore.. at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord…” A friend of mine used to say, “never give anyone authority over you who has not washed your feet.”

As believers in the western world we have a lot of power. Our individualistic culture demands nothing less. We are comparatively rich. We own impressive buildings and real estate. We still gather various numbers of people every Sunday into our comfortable buildings. But do we still have authority? Hardly any. There are exceptions among us, but they are too rare. The solution? We have to get out and serve.

We have to leave our safe bastions of faith, bow our heads and become vulnerable. We have to descend from our positions and titles, risk humility and uncertainty, risk feeling a little lost and foolish, and care for the marginalized and oppressed. They have a great deal to teach us about the gospel. Maybe if we embrace that process we might recover some currency. Better still, if we learn compassion, we will learn something new about the heart of Jesus, and we will see his face like we never have before.

A New Legalism

Sitting talking to valued friends can be a joyous experience but also it can be the catalyst that creates tension. Recently a friend and I were sitting in his office talking about community, church and most importantly our observations of the U2 album “How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb”. Needless to say we both shared the same opinion of it being yet another landmark record where the band explores in various ways issues of faith, God and social justice etc. Perhaps the topic for another day! What came next was a dialogue considering the inter-relationships between community, culture and church. More specifically how our definitions and experience of legalism within the body of Christ had brought both blessing and curse. A blessing in that we could see the areas that we had been freed from but also the dark reality cloud that just maybe we had simply traded one ‘brand’ of legalism for another?

My intention in writing this article is to take us on a journey where we explore some of the purpose and application of law as described in both the Old Testament and the New Testament and how at times our clouded understanding of  ‘the law’ has taken us to an expression of legalism.  Secondly, I want to explore how my own spirituality has been affected through the subtlety of legalism from a variety of Christian expression.

In order for us to come to terms with legalism we must first look at law. Laws are written to provide order to living. They regulate what we can and cannot do. They endeavour to define what is acceptable, and to protect us from what is unacceptable. They try to protect the vulnerable from unscrupulous people. Every year more and more laws are made to try to curb the growing abuses that exist. Even though we sometimes complain about too many laws, few of us would be satisfied with the anarchy that would result from a world without law.

Moses realised this as the Israelites were being shaped into a nation. The Ten Commandments spelled out the special relationship that was to exist between God and the people of Israel. They also defined the kind of behaviour that was to exist between people and their neighbours and they also contributed towards defining the Israelites as a nation. The observance of those laws gradually became an expression of Israel’s religious faith.

However, over time the religious leaders added other laws to explain and determine the meaning of religious behaviour.  For example: The Oral Torah contains many details that were not included in the Written Torah. For example, the Fourth Commandment (Ex. 20:10) forbids work on the Sabbath; the Oral Torah (Mishnah Shabbos 7:2) lists 39 categories of forbidden work. The phrase “an eye for an eye” in the Written Torah (e.g., Ex. 21:24) has been interpreted in the Oral Torah as referring to the payment of damages — “the value of an eye for an eye”. The details of what must be paid for when one person injures another are given in Mishnah Bava Kama 8:1; they include (if applicable) the value of the damage (how much less is a slave worth if he has lost an eye?); pain and suffering; medical expenses; lost time; and embarrassment. The Oral Torah’s amplification of the written verse is as old as the written verse itself; the phrase “an eye for an eye” was never interpreted literally by the Jews.

The Mishnah is a collection of the laws that were given to Moses orally or that were instituted by the courts over the centuries following Moses’ time. It was compiled by Rabbi Judah the Prince around the year 200 C.E. The Gemara records the discussions about the Mishnah during the next 150 and 300 years, respectively. The combination of the Mishnah and the Gemara is called the Talmud. Such complexity of oral and written tradition could be the ingredients upon which a legalistic heart might feed.

Within certain sections of Judaism were veins of legalism that the prophets contested. Their thinking suggested that God’s favour was made contingent on rigid adherence to the minute details of the law . God’s love was thought proportionate to the people’s obedience. The words of the prophets resonated and challenged this strict adherence to law. In his day, Jeremiah announced a new covenant when the Lord says:
“I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jer.31:33) Amos thundered God’s judgment over religious activity that had no relationship to social justice.
“Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land, saying, “When will the new moon be over so that we may sell grain; and the Sabbath, so that we may offer wheat for sale? We will make the ephah small and the shekel great, and practice deceit with false balances, buying the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals, and selling the sweepings of the wheat.” (Amos 8:4-6)

Micah sought to wrest religion from legalism and challenged the people:
“to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah. 6:8).

And, of course, Jesus gave a new thrust to the law with his response to the Pharisees: “The Pharisees came together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22: 34-40.) To quote a friend: “Love God, love people, that is what it is all about”.

Early in the history of the New Testament church there came a man, Saul of Tarsus, a Pharisee schooled by the great Gamaliel .Before becoming a follower of Jesus, Paul worked to keep Judaism pure and untainted, so much so that he attempted to annihilate Christians. Acts 9:1-2 records:
“Meanwhile Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lords disciples. He went to the High Priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to The Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”

His persecution of the new believers brought him great notoriety yet on that journey along the Damascus road, God intervened, and there Paul came face to face with the living Messiah and was transformed. Paul in many ways becomes the “apostle of freedom”; part of his life’s mission becomes preaching “justification by faith alone”
In the letter to the Galatians, Paul wrestles with Judaisers (Christian Jews) who insisted that a number of the ceremonial practices of the Jewish faith were still ‘binding’ in the New Testament church .

Paul presents a strong counter argument indicating that those who opposed him where adding to the gospel and thereby perverting it. Paul argues that we are justified by faith alone. In Galatians 2:15-16 he writes:
“We who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law none will be justified”.

The law, argues Paul, serves one purpose, to reveal the perversity of human nature. For example, laws that say, “You shall not commit adultery”, “You shall not steal”, “You shall not tell lies”, (Exodus 20) really says as much about the character of a person as it does about what God requires. The law exposes an inherent weakness. If such things were not being committed, there would no need of such laws. The question arises, “How then can anyone find favour with God if not by following God’s commandments, if not by reading God’s word, if not by “being born again,” if not by being baptized?

And Paul’s answer cried out then and still does today:
“It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, declare to everyone who lets themselves be obligated to obey the whole law, You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from the Messiah; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope.For in the Messiah, Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”(Galatians 5: 1-6)

Paul is teaching us that through the death and resurrection of Jesus, God has opened new doors for love and acceptance that remove the burdens of legalism and call for a simple faith response. Laws might curtail the temptation to abuse a given relationship, but obedience to the law in no way guarantees one to special privileges from God. No amount of Bible reading, attending services, praying or good works needs to be undertaken to earn God’s unmitigated favour. We have already received the grace of God – there is no need therefore to work for it!

I can have no arguments with church leaders who want to recommend or suggest or advocate a particular way of relating to God. After all, it is from our own personal experience that we can best witness for God. Also, I fully recognize that within the context of relationship with a living God that we can do things that do especially please the heart of God. As a worship leader I know that it pleases God when we offer up what we have to him…but again it on a relational basis (because we love Him) and not through duty. However, when the recommendations and/or suggestions become “pseudo commands” then I fear that we are going down a very misguided path. When we are told, “This is what we must do” or “This is how we must pray” or “This is how we are to dress” etc, we have entered the dark world of legalism.

From the struggles of the emerging church, how far have we come in these two-thousand odd years, what about that legalism stuff, how is that actually worked out in our various fellowships of faith? Traditionally as a Northern Ireland Baptist who over the years journeyed in my theology and thinking to a much more charismatic inclined dogma. I have been both victim and perpetrator of legalistic practice. I remember going to church in my Sunday best, white shirt, dark pin-striped shirt and black leather bound Authorized Version tucked under my arm. Smoking, drinking and social dancing were strictly prohibited, sex was only for the purpose of procreation and not something that was to be discussion around the table of ‘decent folk’.

Specifically, I remember going to a local evangelical church in Belfast with my then girlfriend, I was sixteen years old and in love (remember those days). Singing at the top of my lungs and holding my girlfriends hand I felt a brash tug at my elbow, obviously this person wanted my attention. I turned to see the not so loving face of one of our ‘elders’ who abruptly said: “That is not the type of behaviour we want to encourage at this church”. I looked at him quite puzzled wondering what the heck he was talking about. Seeing the expression on my face he roughly removed my hand from that of my girlfriend. Oh I see, here I am worshiping my guts out while holding hands with my girlfriend and its ‘wrong’. My first experience of legalism is contained in that moment.

Many of us can relate to the struggle some denominations within church has with the consumption of alcohol. Some would say that despite Jesus first miracle being turning water into wine that the church has been endeavouring to turn the wine back to water ever since. Surely if you have a glass of wine or beer you simply cannot be saved? That is the message I grew up with. Or, bible reading/study/devotions were to be observed as strictly as the Jews held their festivals and feasts. Without that ‘quiet time’ doubt was expressed as to just how well you were ‘really’ doing. How easy it is to beat up our more traditional brothers and sisters as I did for placing this yoke of slavery upon me. In my move towards a more charismatically inclined belief system I am able to understand and appropriate an experience of Gods love for me, the ‘yoke of slavery’ is being broken…I am beginning to be “freed”.

The words of Galatians Chapter 5 were tattooed upon life: “It is for freedom that Jesus has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words! I, Paul, declare to everyone who lets themselves be obligated to obey the whole law, You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from the Messiah; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. For in the Messiah, Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Galatians 5: 1-6)

Now let’s look at that life a decade or so years later. I have immigrated to my adopted country of Canada, tried to embrace a different culture and found myself with a family of faith known as “The Vineyard”. Secondly, the stage was set for the beginnings of expression as to how a new Christian culture would perhaps unfold. I am free to enjoy a glass of wine or beer with my friends, sometimes even after ‘worship practice’. I am free from my black pinstriped suit and white shirt into the world of jeans, T-shirts, wild hair and body piercing. Dancing is not only encouraged but it might even get a bit wild at times. I now have several bible versions, including some paraphrased versions…I have even preached from them. People, far from holding in their emotions feel liberty to express them openly, tears fall in both laughter and pain. Jesus is as much my friend as He is my God. In many ways it is as real as it gets…sometimes even a bit scarily real. For a long time I thought that I had reached a type of Christian utopia….hhmmm dangerous, dangerous assumption!

Now, this is where I hear the voices of my traditional brothers sighing in agony as to how far I have fallen. But could they be right?

Looking back, particularly over the past three or four years I have noticed patterns that I had not observed or even thought about. What about  prayer ‘models’ where we moved from laying hands on people, listening to God and praying, to the progression of bodily postures that added to the complexity of the ‘model’. We evolved up to the point that for some reason we felt it necessary to pray with our hands on someone’s head and our feet in touch with their feet. It’s like we became these spiritual battery terminals ready to transmit the power of God through the person. Or where we took on the habit of smoking Lord of the Rings type pipes at our leaders meetings, or found it acceptable to sit in a friends garage and gargle back a few ‘tall-boy’s’ while pontificating upon the state of our church. All in the name or guise of our new found freedom.

What has happened that our Sunday morning worship became about the performance of the worship band in order to usher in the presence of God, and our teaching that became an experiential ‘this is how I feel’ with little substance, comfort or nurture for the gathered assembly. What happened to create a system where conformity was required yet freedom was preached? What happened to a body who touted dialogue yet punished difference? Have I discarded the robe of fundamentalist legalism simply to slip on a more comfortable one that has the illusion of freedom?  Perhaps the only difference is that this Pharisee now wears jeans and a T-shirt and has to wear them at that!

I believe the truth to be this. Legalism be it right-wing or left-wing holds the same stench in the nostrils of God no matter how we try to justify or excuse it. Most of us look at the last scene in the movie ‘Braveheart’ where William Wallace has just been hanged almost to the point of death, his body is then cut down and he falls to the gallows deck. Roughly picked up he was thrown on a table where as he is being disemboweled he cries “Freedom!” All of us experienced a mixture of tears in our eyes and anger in our hearts that such a price had to be paid. The price Wallace paid for freedom was his death. I wonder sometimes if we hold the price of freedom much too cheaply?  Jesus paid the price of freedom for the world long before William Wallace…and that price was death. The veil of the temple was ripped in two thus giving all of us access to our Father.

I wonder what ‘freedoms’ we would be willing to give up for the sake of freedom? It seems a conflicted statement, but perhaps true freedom can only be experienced when new are willing to give up that freedom for the sake of others. Would we die for that freedom? God may not require martyrdom in the physical sense but what does it take to martyr our hearts? What will it take to martyr my heart? My prayer for myself and others is that we each have the courage to look again at our lives from whatever side of the evangelical divide we find ourselves on, to stare deep into our hearts and somehow appropriate what ‘freedom in Jesus’ really entails. Oh, to find the place where faith, obedience and freedom intersect. It is there I believe we will find the heart of Jesus.

So “A New Legalism” isn’t so new after all, it can simply morph into whatever ugly leviathan we allow it to be. It robs us of life, making us judgmental, critical and unkind.  I will let the words of Richard Foster resonate my thoughts:

“All who seek God have a perennial tendency to idolize the means through which God is made known to us. Perhaps it was by means of an altar call that God wonderfully broke into our lives. Perhaps it was in the reciting of a particular liturgy, or the singing of a special hymn, or the reading of a specific book, or in the unmediated quiet of our home, or while we were in a particular posture. We then take that living experience and calcify it and idolize it as the way to meet God. Without realizing it, we soon turn a vibrant, life-giving reality into a new legalism, which breathes death.”

In conclusion I would offer this prayer form myself and perhaps you as well. Father teach me what it is to walk a life of obedience to You, foster my love for You and teach my heart all the mysteries of Your grace and mercy. Let not my feet stumble or cause others to stumble as I journey with them on the road of life. Amen!

A Case of Culture Shock

This is an article from 2006 that was published in Vineline, I just thought my blog would be a nice place to park it.

The world is changing at a remarkable pace, so too should our understanding of what church needs to be as we seek to communicate the timeless message of hope and salvation that the gospel brings! What would a change in our understanding look like? How would we react to someone stating that they were a “Muslim follower of Jesus”? Does it make those little hairs on the back of our necks tingle with uncertainty? Does that feeling of “righteous truth” rise up within us and cry out for the long held tradition of “making a commitment” to Jesus?

In the fall of 2005, five of us from North Langley Vineyard went on a trip to Beirut, Lebanon. Our purpose was to visit and encourage one of our international workers (we’ll call her “Janet”) who has the pleasure of living each day in community with both Lebanese and Palestinian peoples in Beirut. Janet works for a non-profit organization whose mission, gleaned from the front page of their website, is as follows:

According to the United Nations, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon live in the worst conditions of poverty and overcrowding in the world.1 Most Palestinians living there fled from their home country in 1948 and – unable to obtain Lebanese citizenship or work in most jobs – have lived in limbo ever since.

“Our commitment is to bring glory to God as we work among the poorest of the poor in this place.”

Janet and her fellow team members seek to live out their mission, by “building reconciling communities that empower the poor and oppressed.”

One of the major paradoxes we faced in Lebanon was the concept of people of the Muslim faith being followers of Jesus. “How could that be?” we asked ourselves, and to be honest some of us were more comfortable with the concept than others (It’s a topic that since has gotten me into some pretty hot water with other Christians). OK, but when did they get saved? When did they make a “commitment”? Do they still go to the mosque? Unfortunately these were some of the more reasonable questions that have been asked. This kind of paradox stretches the fabric of our concepts of Christianity and salvation and, like a loose thread in a sweater, we are often afraid to tug on that thread not knowing if it will continue to unravel until there is nothing left.

The funny thing is, in the swirl of literature surrounding the whole topic of the emerging church we see how things are changing rapidly, yet paradoxically nothing has really changed at all. Think of the whole beginnings of the early church. First there was the church in Jerusalem – in simplistic terms, a bunch of Jewish Christians. How challenging was it for them to be called Jewish followers of Jesus? Then comes this guy, Paul, who has the audacity to challenge the Jewish followers of Jesus to take the Gospel to the Gentiles (for goodness sakes, what would be next?). Surely we must see that the predominant issue in this struggle was not primarily one of theology (right thinking about God) but rather a clash of culture. Consider in this context a “Muslim follower of Jesus”. Is it really that different? I recognize that this issue is not as simple as I have just laid out. Just as in the days of the early church, there is much to grapple with and explore, but we must be comfortable living in the tension of the question rather than quickly jumping to answers simply based on our cultural grid (recognizing that our theology also will always be affected by that cultural grid).

Lebanon changed me; it confronted what I believed. Well, maybe not so much what I believed but definitely the way I believed it. I remember having a conversation with Janet about planting a community of faith in Beirut, “Can you imagine a Vineyard Church in the Middle East?” I was pontificating about how excited I was to see such a thing happen and just maybe to be an active part in seeing it realized. Janet looked at me as we sat in Starbucks having a coffee on one of her recent visits back. I could see the frustration on her face expressing the fact that I was obviously not getting it. “Paul, what are you talking about? ‘…excited to see a community of faith in Lebanon.’ Its already there!” Instantly I knew I had missed it completely. Just because it didn’t look like what I imagined it should, I couldn’t see what was already there. There is a group of multi-national people who are pioneering a unique community of faith in Southern Beirut. I, on the other hand, had visions of Palestinians and Lebanese people getting together to sing “Faithful One” and have a Caucasian North American teach and minister in a westernized format. In many ways my perspective was quite similar to that of the early Jewish Christians as they outlined their expectations to Paul as to what salvation and church for the Gentiles needed to look like: converts had to be circumcised, judaized and in every other way “ized” before being accepted into the fold.

On the whole issue of salvation, I am one of those people (as are most baby-boomer Christians, I would expect) who has a fixed date of salvation on which I said the sinners prayer (which carries with it the appropriate “fire insurance” of course). How accurate of a concept is that? With hindsight and considering my personal journey, I can see that I “get saved” each and every day I open my eyes. Dare I say that even before I knew God in the traditional sense, he knew me and I knew him. How? I don’t know; I just did. It was never as simple as making a commitment. It was, and is, process oriented – like all relationships are.

In the 1990’s I was a worship leader in a small church in Banbridge, Northern Ireland. My electric guitar player and keyboard player, both incredible musicians, were not “saved” as such but in a process of getting to know God. I got into so much trouble for using them on a team, even to the point of having the obligatory visit from the eldership team and senior pastor. Thankfully they were open enough to working with me, but wow did we push each other to the brink at times! There were others, especially worship people, who were horrified at the very thought of “tainting the worship team with the unsaved”. (Some of you may identify with those sentiments.) Let me complete the story… Simeon and Ding have changed lives and are active members of their faith communities to this day. Are they perfect? No, but then again, neither are we.

Does this idea of living with people in process have its dangers? Big time! On another occasion I had a different electric guitar player who was also in the process of getting to know God. The difficulty was that he began to hit on another married member of our team. It was scary at times, difficult to handle, and in fact resulted in the team being broken up. It isn’t necessarily easy to live with people in process, but it is right. Jesus didn’t demand that Zacchaeus change his unjust professional practices, he simply invited himself over to his place. Again, can we live in the tension of culture shock as people trade the culture of this world for a Kingdom culture, which isn’t necessarily a North American “Christian” culture? Have we got room for people in process within our churches? How do we not only invite them in to our “place,” but like Jesus invite ourselves over to be their guests as well?

For large parts of our history (including the present) we have expected culture to come to us. What if “church” were to look radically different from our present norm? How can we actively engage our culture, take church to our culture? On the one hand, it needs to be very different. Our strategic intent must be that of looking outward, seeking out places for others to experience what love does outside of the safe harbor of our meetings. On the other hand, it’s the same as it always been. The culture of the first century was widely diverse and challenging, yet the gospel thrived as the Kingdom was lived and experienced (notice I didn’t say “believed”?). How did it thrive? Could it be because the followers of Jesus actively engaged with the surrounding culture, lived in it and not apart from it and brought Jesus to their culture?

It would be easy to rationalize an excuse and simply point to either the geographical distance between Canada and Lebanon or dialogue about the distinct cultural differences between the West and the East in our story and end up doing nothing. Most of us could prolong the debate indefinitely, going back and forth on issues such as what is cultural sensitivity and what are the biblical requirements for salvation or other such issues. In my opinion this would be an exercise in “missing the point”. There is a clash of culture occurring in our own back yard. It is not an exaggeration to say that church, as we know it, sits on the precarious precipice of extinction. Let’s be clear: The message is still the same, Jesus is the same – yesterday, today and forever – but if we are to impact our global village we must look at how we can gain the ears of the culture in order that they might hear the message of hope and deliverance they so desperately need.

Perhaps what I have written will ruffle some feathers. This article is written not from a place of having all the answers, but rather from a place of recognizing how locked into our own cultural mindset we tend to be to the exclusion of what we could be. It is written neither from the point of biblical scholarship nor biblical theology. I have deliberately resisted the temptation to drop in Bible verses as a sort of proof text to prove any point. Sometimes I feel our movement has become an incredibly safe harbor (which is good and right in many ways), but I don’t believe we have ever been called to be “safe” where that safety impedes us from pioneering ahead, enhancing the Kingdom as we go. My encouragement to us all is to really dwell in the tension of being prepared to step out from the safety of the walls of the church and into people’s cultures, lives and homes – people who are in a process of getting to know Jesus more (as we all are).

(Endnotes)
1 www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/lebanon.html

Week four reflections

“For: The Institute Of Contemporary And Emerging Worship Studies, St Stephen’s University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt”

As much as I love the topic of worldview and realize the necessity of being able to grapple with the many nuances I am also a little suspicious. Worldview first arose in German idealist and Romantic philosophy of the 19th Century; and is coined from the German word “weltanschauung.” Primarily ‘worldview’ is a response to a comprehensive and powerful modern humanist worldview.

Having been immersed in ‘systematic theology’ and now thankful to be healed of that affliction, my continuing journey in theology is directed by being careful of things that are set in place as a reaction to something else.

So there you have my caveat for this short piece on my “worldview.”
In essence my worldview statement is contained amongst the following piece of scripture. It is far from being exhaustive but captures the majority of themes that I find mystery, poetry and paradox in.

Colossians 1:15-23
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”

This is a great mystery passage on Christian worldview. It’s like finding a long lost love letter that has been crumpled up. Once you start to open it up you read little sections at a time as many others are hidden in the remaining crumpled pages. Mystery continually wrapped in paradox unfolding ‘the story’ of love and redemption. From the Garden to the Cross is a journey of Christian worldview; from perfection to desolation and alienation, then redemption and restoration.

Mark writes in the Gospel that Jesus announced that the Kingdom of God has come (Mark 1:15-16). God is acting in power and love through Jesus and by the Holy Spirit to restore all of human life and all of the creation to live under Gods loving rule.

In essence the word redemption captures my concept of what it is to have a Christian worldview. I think in using the word redemption I can comfortably include a more systematic viewpoint of the move from perfection – sin – the consequences of sin – the way back from sin under a great meta narrative of the redemptive purpose of God, yet also be caught up in the eternal mystery of working that out day by day, sin by sin, forgiveness by forgiveness.
What will the end be? If we are to agree with NT Wright, there really is no end, just a different dimension or maybe the same dimension where the creative story is set to rights. Either way, we follow a worldview shrouded in the mystery of God and we should not get too comfortable in our belief systems as God is apt to surprise us along the way.