A while ago it was topical to ask the question 'What would Jesus do?'. I've just been challenged by Steve Addison (author of 'Movements that Change the World' - brilliant book check out his blog www.movements.net) to ask a different question: 'what did Jesus do?'.
The danger of asking 'what would Jesus do?' is that we create the Jesus we want to believe in (Frost & Hirsch unpack this brilliantly in ReJesus) instead of engaging with Jesus in a way that transforms us. This almost inevitably leads to a comfortable version of Jesus who confirms rather than confronts our prejudices.
When we ask 'what did Jesus do?', we open ourselves to a much greater potential for transformation. On the one hand, Jesus loves us and affirms us. On the other hand, Jesus has a far bigger picture of our potential than we do. He loves us as we are, but loves us too much to leave us there! All of us have an imperfect (and culturally conditioned) understanding of Jesus. Consistent examination of the life and example of Jesus will enlarge our vision of who he is.
It is in studying 'what Jesus did?' that Jesus is able to transform us. Usually that transformation is disturbing and scary - generally the people who are used most by Jesus are the ones who are most broken early in the process. To experience this, we need to find seasons when we are set free from 'doing' to come close to Jesus and receive from him. A prolonged study of the gospels with plenty of opportunity to listen to Jesus (combined with prayer and fasting) puts us in the place where we can become more like Jesus. Many of us would rather be busy doing things for God than taking time to listen to him, but it's worth the effort. We're between Easter and Pentecost at the moment - a period when the first disciples were told by Jesus to wait in the city until they received the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8). Luke doesn't tell us how hard the disciples found this period of praying and waiting, but the fruit on the day of Pentecost made it all worthwhile.
I feel really challenged at the moment to 'wait for the Holy Spirit' - not in a passive sense, but actively looking and longing for more of Jesus. Watch this space and I'll tell you what happens nexr.
Friday, 6 May 2011
Sunday, 1 May 2011
Frustration to action
I really enjoy Holy Week and Easter Day, but I also find it deeply frustrating. Enjoy because it's a graphic demonstration of God's most amazing action in history. We can spend a life- time trying to understand the full meaning of the events of that week and still be surprised. This Easter in particular, we had the joy of one infant baptism, four adult baptisms (in a swimming pool in the church car park) and eleven new members welcomed into the fellowship - a brilliant morning.
I'm frustrated because the way we tell the story and celebrate the resurrection connects so badly with the world outside the church. We know the 'Greatest Story Ever Told', but manage to tell it in a way that makes it boring and irrelevant to most people. Holy week services are attended by the faithful few
What can we do about it? There are at least three obvious responses:
Try harder!
Become disaffected with the whole thing.
Try something different.
Try harder
There's no doubt that we can always improve the way we do worship on high days and festivals, but if no one even knows we're holding the services, how will changing them attract others. I've spent most of my Christian life working on the principle that we only need to change a little to become more effective in mission. I'm less and less convinced that this is true. The pool of people who might be attracted to traditional church is small and getting smaller all the time. However, it's a way of working that we get sucked into all the time. Sometimes we have a spiritual experience elsewhere (I've just been to ECG which has been a real spiritual high) which motivates us to be better followers of Jesus, but we don't re-examine what following means, so we go back to doing the same things with renewed energy. Sometimes we try harder because we can't think what else to do. I think it was Einstein who said that insanity is doing the same thing twenty times and expecting a different result on the twentieth try than we got on the first nineteen!
Become disaffected
I can think of two sorts of disaffection. There are those who feel the church thing isn't working and begin to drift away. Sometimes they give up on God and faith too - sometimes they just give up on church. Often those who are still in church blame them - they're back-sliders, without asking if the nature of church is part of the problem.
Others stay in church but become less involved and more cynical about the whole thing. They drain energy from the body of Christ because they're no longer giving anything. They still think of themselves as key members, but they're drying up on the inside.
Often Christians swing between these two cycles in a downward pattern. Guilt or a new experience pushes them to try harder, but then after a while disaffection and cynicism set in again.
Try something different
The difficulty here is knowing what to try. Do we jump onto the latest 'thing' hoping it will
Succeed where other attempts failed? How do we choose what 'thing'? I know I've jumped onto a lot of band-wagons over the last thirty years and many of them have not taken me or my churches as far forward as I hoped. I've got three principles for trying something different:
Being not doing
In Romans 12:2, Paul talks of being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Not changing what we do, but allowing God the Holy Spirit to transform who we are. Focus on character not action
Remember your calling
What has god called you to do and to be? If you've never been sure of this, make this the focus of your prayers and seek help to discover it. If you do know what this is, examine how much of your life is shaped around it. If you're doing lots of worthy things that you're not called to, then think about how you can put them down (even if that leaves a gap in the church's ministry) and fill the time with things that are more in line with your calling.
Be accountable
Find someone who will hold you accountable for walking closer to Jesus (my blog post about 'boomer faith' offers a framework for this - I'm reworking it at the moment - watch this space) and meet regularly with them - it will encourage you and help you to focus.
I'm frustrated because the way we tell the story and celebrate the resurrection connects so badly with the world outside the church. We know the 'Greatest Story Ever Told', but manage to tell it in a way that makes it boring and irrelevant to most people. Holy week services are attended by the faithful few
What can we do about it? There are at least three obvious responses:
Try harder!
Become disaffected with the whole thing.
Try something different.
Try harder
There's no doubt that we can always improve the way we do worship on high days and festivals, but if no one even knows we're holding the services, how will changing them attract others. I've spent most of my Christian life working on the principle that we only need to change a little to become more effective in mission. I'm less and less convinced that this is true. The pool of people who might be attracted to traditional church is small and getting smaller all the time. However, it's a way of working that we get sucked into all the time. Sometimes we have a spiritual experience elsewhere (I've just been to ECG which has been a real spiritual high) which motivates us to be better followers of Jesus, but we don't re-examine what following means, so we go back to doing the same things with renewed energy. Sometimes we try harder because we can't think what else to do. I think it was Einstein who said that insanity is doing the same thing twenty times and expecting a different result on the twentieth try than we got on the first nineteen!
Become disaffected
I can think of two sorts of disaffection. There are those who feel the church thing isn't working and begin to drift away. Sometimes they give up on God and faith too - sometimes they just give up on church. Often those who are still in church blame them - they're back-sliders, without asking if the nature of church is part of the problem.
Others stay in church but become less involved and more cynical about the whole thing. They drain energy from the body of Christ because they're no longer giving anything. They still think of themselves as key members, but they're drying up on the inside.
Often Christians swing between these two cycles in a downward pattern. Guilt or a new experience pushes them to try harder, but then after a while disaffection and cynicism set in again.
Try something different
The difficulty here is knowing what to try. Do we jump onto the latest 'thing' hoping it will
Succeed where other attempts failed? How do we choose what 'thing'? I know I've jumped onto a lot of band-wagons over the last thirty years and many of them have not taken me or my churches as far forward as I hoped. I've got three principles for trying something different:
Being not doing
In Romans 12:2, Paul talks of being transformed by the renewing of our minds. Not changing what we do, but allowing God the Holy Spirit to transform who we are. Focus on character not action
Remember your calling
What has god called you to do and to be? If you've never been sure of this, make this the focus of your prayers and seek help to discover it. If you do know what this is, examine how much of your life is shaped around it. If you're doing lots of worthy things that you're not called to, then think about how you can put them down (even if that leaves a gap in the church's ministry) and fill the time with things that are more in line with your calling.
Be accountable
Find someone who will hold you accountable for walking closer to Jesus (my blog post about 'boomer faith' offers a framework for this - I'm reworking it at the moment - watch this space) and meet regularly with them - it will encourage you and help you to focus.
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