There have been just a couple of times in my life when I knew that I knew that something needed to change. The first time was when I was 19 and was living like someone whose fantasy of life was better than the Father’s. I remember, as I lay recovering from a rather serious illness, that something needed to change. That particular change resulted in my first steps in the Way of Jesus.

The second time was just a few weeks later when I was back at school for my sophomore year. I had spent an entire year pursuing a degree in music education and doing it quite successfully. I remember classes resuming and not retaining anything of the previous year’s education. What I was supposed to recollect was gone–as though I had never learned it. Something needed to change. That particular change resulted in a complete reorientation of my course of study.

The third time was after four years of working at a large church in Minnesota. While there, I experienced what “church” ministry was like. It was one of the most formational experiences of my short life as I began to discover how God had wired me. It was there that I realized that I am not a maintainer, but instead am most alive when I am out on the fringe somewhere, pushing the boundaries of what is possible. It was there that I realized that I was built to empower leaders, am fascinated with organizational and organic systems, and prefer to be with people who are flipping God and the church off. Something needed to change. That particular change resulted in my wife and I selling everything that we owned and heading across the country to a new world–literally.

The fourth time was after a life-altering experience in the tribal villages of northern Pakistan. I came home and began living in a world that I had set up for myself pre-Pakistan. It didn’t fit anymore–something needed to change. That particular change resulted in my resigning a safe position for a dangerous one.

Last week was the most outstanding educational experience of my life. It is still hard to put into words what I experienced, other than to say that reformation of some sort is dawning. There was a clarity–an affirmation. It was as though God were saying, “It’s time!” I wonder if this past week, for me, was the stuff of Destiny…

Want to come along?

I am usually the one who sits and listens to people talking about Christianity or the church and what it could be thinking, “Something is off here.” I am usually the one asking all sorts of questions from a different perspective. I am usually the one that is the “Devil’s Advocate” in settings such as these.

All week, I have been wrestling with the following question:

“Why am I not disagreeing with this person?”

Answer: I have finally found my people!

I heard of a story recently concerning a women who left to go the grocery store (somewhere in South East Asia). Somehow, she got on the wrong bus and ended up in a place where nobody knew her language so nobody could understand her. She was lost for–get this–25 years! Finally, someone traveled to the area where she was who could understand her language. Upon hearing her dialect, he spoke words to her. She was understood for the first time and was able to understand someone speaking her language for the first time in 25 years. Imagine what that would have been like! She found her people.

I watched a movie called Happy Feet which totally resonated with me. It moved me deeply–more deeply than I care to admit to most people. I wrestled for several days–Why did this movie move me so? I finally realized that Happy Feet (a dancing penguin that is exiled from a singing penguin community) was me. I don’t know how to sing. When I open my mouth to try, I squawk and make an awful mess of things. What I do is dance. Instead of learning how to sing, Happy Feet taught the village how to dance. My call is to keep on dancing and, in so doing, teach my village to dance. I’m not a singer. I am dancing, this week, with a couple of dancers. I’m finding my “people.”

I was dancing with two such dancers this afternoon after class where we spent time discussion what missional incarnational impulse is and the power of organic systems (more to come on this later). After a beer at a local pub, I asked them (realizing that they don’t know me well yet) what they are observing about my journey this week through interactions with them, class dialogue, etc.

Charlie: You’re an apostolic leader who is probably an excellent communicator who is incredibly agitated. You likely feel isolated in your context. If you’re not careful, you may be thrust into a position of leadership that is unhealthy for you.

Patrick: (From a Spiritual Formation Standpoint) There could soon come a point where everything that has worked in the past isn’t going to work anymore and it is going to force a crisis. Know that God uses times like this to pull emerging leaders out, form them and teach them so that they can really spread their wings and fly. God uses life (good and bad) to form us. He is probably doing that right now and it might intensify soon.

My current biggest wrestling:
I think God might be focusing who I am becoming this week. I remember the discussion He and I had where He said to me, “I want to tell My story with your life. This is what I’ve built you for.” I’ve thought about that over and over the past four days. I think He is focusing that call and I don’t think it includes the institutional church. I don’t think it includes the conventional church. I think it includes the unconventional. I think it includes that which is undefinable. I wonder what the best training for me is…

I’m finding my people. I’m hearing a couple of people speak my language and dance my dance. It’s bizarre–

Let’s release one another from the poverty of imagination about who we are and what He’s calling us to!

I’m pretty exhausted so I just have four questions (more or less) to get us going. Interact with me on this and I’ll flesh out my thoughts on the comments.

Q. What is your definition of discipleship? What would it look like? What informs your definition?
Q. What do you think would happen if we took discipleship seriously?
Q. Compare and contrast what leadership in the conventional church is with what you find in Ephesians 4:11…..How would you define apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher? Which do we highlight in the conventional church?
Q. Where do you see Jesus embodying each of these?

More to come…

“If something is true, it will change you.” Soren Kierkegaard

If “Jesus is Lord” is true, it will change everything about you.
If “Jesus is Lord” is true, Open Door, it will change everything about us.
If everything about you is not changing, then “Jesus is Lord” is not truth to you.
If everything about us is not changing, then “Jesus is Lord” is not truth to us.

Yowser!

Jesus informs the mission and the mission informs the church.

In an effort to illustrate this, consider the spontaneous expansion of the New Testament Church and the expansion of the Church in China. In 100AD, in a Roman Culture of nearly 40 million people, there were approx. 20K followers of Christ. In 300AD, in a Roman Culture of nearly 60 million people, there were approx. 20 million followers of Christ.

What happened? How did they do it?

In China, there were several Jesus-movements that were virtually exterminated throughout the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Under the Mao regime, Christianity was obliterated, professional clergy were killed, Bibles were burned, buildings were converted for use by the state. Today, there are 130 million followers of Christ and rapidly growing.

What happened? How did they do it?

My response this morning: “Well naturally, when there is persecution, the church grows.” That is true to a point, but it wasn’t what enabled the spontaneous expansion.

What enabled the spontaneous expansion is that everything was refined and simplified. For both ages, Jesus was placed in the center of what it meant to be Christian. Who Jesus was informed what it meant to be the church. All of the structures and systems were eliminated. People had to begin taking the initiative for their own spiritual formation, in community (never alone: they risked their lives to do this together). Community (people expressing common thoughts, feelings, etc) changed to Communitas (friendship that readily adapts when necessary). Theology was simplified to “Jesus is Lord.” Everything else was fringe and took a new shape/direction. “Jesus is Lord” in turn informed the mission of the church. Their mission (informed by Jesus is Lord) was no longer to create or sort out the best system; their mission (informed by Jesus is Lord) became the redemption of the world. The mission, informed by “Jesus is Lord” then informed what it meant to be the Church. This changed the way they lived and the Church became known as a force through which God began redeeming the world–no matter what it cost. I wonder what the Jesus they worshipped, who was redefining everything, looked like…

If it is true that Jesus informs the mission, which, in turn, informs the church, then what does the Jesus that informs the American church look like? Perhaps we need to start by assessing what the American church looks like (what is central to us? we can tell based on our expectations of the experience of “church”). The face of our iconic Jesus might be revealed and it might scare us.

Thoughts?

Where to begin?

Alan Hirsch is the instructor. What I love about Alan is that he is a mixture of theoretician and practitioner. Much of his learning about what the church could be has come through dialogue and experimentation in his local context, Melbourne, Australia.

A question:
Is it possible that the American Church, including Open Door, is a faulty system reproducing itself?

Consider this–
Once upon a time, Christianity was on the margins. It was underground–it was on the fringes–it was happening among the most unlikely of people. It was viral, meaning it was incredibly grassroots–a movement spreading because a group of people began orienting their lives around the person of Jesus. Christ-followers were ridiculed, persecuted, looked down upon, seen as second-class citizens, yet they kept coming back. They just kept on living virally in the Way of Jesus and it spread and it spread and it spread. It spread not because of any catchy marketing scheme. It spread not because of the latest technology or coolest musical experience. It spread not because of a building. It spread not because a group of people happened to meet from time to time.

It spread because as people grew in the image of the Living God (discipleship/transformation/whatever you want to call it)–a God who is a missionary God (constantly pursuing and redeeming mankind)–the became driven by mission. Mission (the redemption of mankind) became central to them. This happened not because someone told them it should–but because that is what happens as we grow in the likeness of His Son Jesus.

As it spread–it changed everything.

And then a Roman Emperor named Constantine (blast Constantine), in the political move of political moves, made Christianity THE religion of the world (more or less). Why was this a bad thing you ask? It was a bad thing because that which was viral (like salt and light) was thrust into the center and boxed up into a nice building. It became easy to be Christian and the communal experience of being Christian went from a grassroots movement to a religion experienced on a particular day in a particular place.

From that moment until now (17 centuries in total) Constantine continues to show up. He shows up every time our perspective of church is a place with a thing that we go to and often times like. He shows up every time it is easy to be Christian. He shows up every time we become conditioned to a certain experience of worship. He shows up in the poverty of our imagination of what the church was and could be again.

What does this mean in general?

It means that for 17 centuries we have been recreating, repackaging, regenerating the same thing that doesn’t work–it never has. It doesn’t work because it became what it never was intended to be. Because we keep buying into Constantine’s ideal, like the movie “Field of Dreams” we convince ourselves that if we build it and build it really nice–then people will come.

Reality Check–People are NOT coming! Why should they? They don’t get the lingo, the don’t get the music, they don’t get how the church could spend so much money on things that don’t seem to make any difference in the world.

Put another way: Once upon a time, missio dei (the mission of God: redemption of mankind) was central to the church. Now, “doing church” (producing a flashy worship gathering) has become central. Something is off…

A couple of questions…
1. If you were to strip the church down to what it was meant to be (see passages such as Acts 2 or Ephesians 4) what would it look like? What are the bare essentials?
2. If you were to completely reimagine church–what would it look like? No reimagination is to creative!
3. What are the above implications for Open Door? What re-calibrations are needed?

Invigorating stuff huh?
Pray with and for me…