Acorns from Oakes

Received my Fall 2010 copy of The City (a publication of Houston Baptist University) in the mail today. The first page contained this passage from one of Augustine’s sermons:

Meanwhile the boat carrying the disciples – that is The Church – is rocking and shaking amid the storms of temptation, while the adverse wind rages on. That is to say, her enemy The Devil strives to keep the wind from claming down. But greater is He who is persistent on our behalf, for amid the vicissitudes of our life He gives us confidence. He comes to us and strengthens us, so we are not jostled in the boat and tossed overboard. For although the boat is thrown into disorder, it is still a boat. It alone carries the disciples and receives Christ. It is in danger indeed on the water, but there would be certain death without it. Therefore stay inside the boat and call upon God! When all good advice fails and the rudder is useless and the spread of the sails presents more of a danger than an advantage, when all human help and strength have been abandoned, the only recourse left for the sailors is to cry out to God. Therefore will He who helps those who are sailing to reach port safely abandon His Church and prevent her from arriving in peace and tranquility? What really has to be guarded against is the boat going off course and turning back. This happens when people give up hope of heavenly rewards, and turn under the distorting pull of greed to things that can be seen but pass away. You see, people who are being troubled and tempted by their passions, and yet keep their sights on the realities of the inner life, do not despair like that, but pray for their offenses to be forgiven and remain determined to win through and sail across the rage and fury of the sea. (“The Boat & The Church” from Sermon 75 of The Homilies of Saint Augustine of Hippo, likely delivered in Carthage circa 395) [emphasis mine]

So, Stephen Hawking’s new book The Grand Design was released three weeks ago, and it is currently #10 on the Amazon.com bestsellers list. That’s remarkable, considering the majority of Americans cannot even comprehend the book’s premise, as stated in the Amazon review:

In The Grand Design we explain why, according to quantum theory, the cosmos does not have just a single existence, or history, but rather that every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously. We question the conventional concept of reality, posing instead a “model-dependent” theory of reality. We discuss how the laws of our particular universe are extraordinarily finely tuned so as to allow for our existence, and show why quantum theory predicts the multiverse—the idea that ours is just one of many universes that appeared spontaneously out of nothing, each with different laws of nature. And we assess M-Theory, an explanation of the laws governing the multiverse, and the only viable candidate for a complete “theory of everything.” As we promise in our opening chapter, unlike the answer to the Ultimate Question of Life given in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, the answer we provide in The Grand Design is not, simply, “42.”

Wow. Just wow - “every possible history of the universe exists simultaneously.”

It’s been common over the past few decades for ministry in America to be passed along as standardized and generally non-pliable. The result has been cookie-cutter churches and cookie-cutter ministries following cookie-cutter patterns for growth – growth generally measured by counting how many people gather at specified meeting times

For decades, and even centuries, the prevailing religious culture has rewarded conformity with promotion while punishing innovation by marginalization. But even a casual journey through the Scriptures reveals that many of the men and women who did great things for God were marginalized by the majority. They were marginalized not because their work was ineffective, but because it didn’t look like what the prevailing minds thought it should look like.

Joseph had no pattern. Joseph was an insider in a pagan culture with no outside contacts for decades. His brothers wrote him off, yet he maintained integrity and faithfulness to his God, and became the saving agent for his generation. And he did all of it without a blueprint. Until Joseph, nobody knew what it looked like.

Philip was the first follower of Christ to actually follow Christ’s footsteps, taking the message to Samaria. As a result, Peter and John were sent in a delegation to confirm that Samaritans could actually take part in the kingdom of God. Meanwhile, Philip was already on the move, today enlightening the heart of an Ethiopian, tomorrow 25 miles up the road entering another town. Is it any wonder he fathered the only prophetesses mentioned in Acts?

Philip received a vision from God which looked distinctively different than the vision most of the other disciples had received. Peter considered himself cutting edge when he visited Cornelius, but he was actually light years behind Philip. Peter could walk into Cornelius’ house a little more confidently because of the picture Philip had painted.

Paul’s transforming vision of Jesus created a ministry that spread the message across the Roman Empire. None of the other disciples had imagined that possibility. They couldn’t fathom what that would look like. But Paul received the vision and acted on it. In Acts 15, Paul’s frustration is almost tangible as the disciples debate what conversion should look like. For Paul, the issue wasn’t theoretical – he’d been so busy carrying out the vision, he didn’t have time to stop and judge whether God was doing it properly. What does conversion look like? Paul knew it when he saw it.

And don’t forget: Jesus was so far outside the imagination and expectations of his own people that they rejected him with the ultimate rejection, handing him over to a pagan world to suffer one of the cruelest forms of capital punishment ever invented.

I recently watched a debate in which a highly-respected ranking official of a religious organization couldn’t engage in meaningful dialogue with those who held different doctrinal positions. Incapable of dialogue, he was reduced to reading talking points which had been prepared beforehand.

God didn’t create us and call us to recite talking points.

I listened as another organizational leader recently preached a rallying sermon by knocking off doctrinal points which were trademarks of his organization. The problem? Love didn’t make the list. Love – the lead-off hitter for both of the great commandments. Love – the apex of Paul’s triangle of what really matters.

Since hearing that sermon months ago, I’ve repeatedly pondered why love wouldn’t make the cut as a trademark of a denomination. The best I can come up with is that many people don’t know what love looks like, at least not enough to describe it accurately in a sermon. Since love is immeasurable, it’s relegated to an assumed status.

But Jesus never assumed love. He proclaimed love, demanded love. And John, the beloved disciple, decided it was possible to picture love – look at Jesus on the cross. That’s love, John wrote, the greatest love. That’s what love looks like. It took a long time for the disciples – John included – to realize that. But once they got it, it transformed their lives and their ministries.

What does your calling look like? What does it mean to do ministry in your setting – as a librarian, or a nurse, or a computer technician, or an actor, or a licensed minister?

What does ministry look like in Los Angeles? What does it look like in Boise or rural Ohio or suburban Philadelphia? The answer: there is no man-made pattern. God alone holds the pattern, the vision, and he desires to pour it into the hearts of his followers, those whom he has delegated to be his ambassadors in declaring the message.

Joel’s prophecy in chapter two wasn’t a recipe for revival. It was a promise, and an unnerving one at that. “Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days” (Joel 2:28-29, NIV). That’s not a pattern. That’s a wind that blows wherever it wants to blow, leading those who will be led to uncharted territories.

Someone has stated the best ways of doing ministry have not yet been discovered. God has called and chosen you to do something magnificent (see Ephesians 2:10). What does that look like?

Please, for the sake of the next generation, don’t let anyone convince you that there’s a pattern which has to be followed. Trust God’s Spirit to open your eyes.

In my random thoughts today, I was thinking about churches that have multiple staff positions and minister to hundreds or thousands of people weekly. I began wondering why such churches don’t have a mechanic (or mechanics) on staff. Perhaps some do, and I just haven’t heard of it, but it’s likely that most don’t.

Why not?

I’ve heard hundreds of church staff titles, from lead pastor to administrative assistant to media specialist to director of social events. And it seems that the majority of positions are created with a primary purpose that points inward rather than outward.

Think about it. Religious leaders generally don’t create missional positions. Many churches have multiple staff positions allotted for the sole purpose of ensuring the Sunday service or services are as professional and current as possible. Musicians practice for days. Developers create Hollywood-worthy content just to introduce the pastor’s message. Assistants fill out paperwork and plan retreats.

And all the while, some of the biggest needs of the community are neglected.

What if some church some where decided to scrap the funny and hip video presentations, and instead decided to open a garage with three or four mechanics on staff, offering oil changes, tire rotations, brakes, and other minor or even major vehicle repairs? With oil changes going for $35 or more these days, and brakes costing in excess of $200, think of the cash a church could put back into the pockets of single moms, low-income families, and elderly couples, just to mention a few.

That would be a ministry that’s missional at the core. Think about the impact on a congregation’s understanding of what it means to be salt and light in the community.

Over the last few decades, few churches have thought like that. My hope is that over the next decade, more leaders choose to think like that, and positions like mechanic, lawn service provider, and outside maintenance minister become common.

What other ways might there be to create innovative staff positions in churches which engage unbelievers in significant ways, rather than provide more and more comfort to the saved?

Let’s think about it some more. Drop me a message at chroak@aol.com.