What disillusions me about church planters...... and myself

So I spent some time surfing the websites of church planters who are starting new, exciting, bold churches.
To enter into a new community and start something from scratch is no small thing. Planters are risk takers, pioneers, faith adventurers.
Most new church starts don’t make it past their first 18 months or remain so small they can barely survive much less thrive – so those that do – you have to be highly impressed with their determination, commitment and ingenuity, along with their talent and leadership.

But as I surfed the websites of the ones that survived and listened to their preaching, read what makes them the ‘church for people who don’t like church’ I became more and more disappointed in these bold adventurers. One by one they had either sold out to the values of church they seemingly were not about (that’s why they were starting a church that people who didn’t go to church would like), or they had lost their boldness.

Click on their websites and you were clicking on to lookalike websites of most large evangelical churches.
Popular pop culture was the flavor of the day.

Want to know about the staff – and their list of interests (including their favorite movie and what they have on their iPod ….seemingly this reveals things about us that would make us want to come to our church); latest reads and seminary qualifications was plain to see.
Hierarchy was the structure of the day.

As for the preaching – formulaic, propositional, ‘say-a-prayer-or-raise-a-hand-and-receive-Jesus’ was Sundays preach.

Where’s the newness, the boldness, the church for those who didn’t go to church?

There’s a big reason why people don’t go to church and very few studies indicate it is because of the old fashioned music or the dull preaching. That turned off my generation, but not the new generation. Today’s generation are turned off because of synthetic theology, shallow living, formulas and self-centered religion.

And in most of the new churches I surfed this was the smelled out flavor.

But then my surfing discovery turned nasty.

Getting myself disillusioned over bold risk taking church planters who were way too conservative, synthetic and predictable in what they had started I blinked hard and realized that I was as guilty as them!

Sure we’ve been involved in helping turnaround a traditional inward focused classic church.
Sure we have done some bold, risky things to shake complacency out and focus on being a church for people who don’t go to church.
Sure we have fought off legalism and traditionalism.
But despite all the progress and newness we have birthed – much of what I was seeing in these ‘bold’ planters is apparent in me.

My earlier boldness – had turned rather predictable.
My earlier freshness in theology – had become somewhat stale.
My earlier contrariness – had seen me sit too much inside a box (albeit a new box).

The one that hit home the most - I’ve shrunk the Gospel down to a message of personal salvation – when it is so much more.

In fact in all of the church planters that I surfed – their theology was rather flat and dull; a cosmetic airbrush rewording of conservative evangelicalism from the 1980’s.

If there is one thing the unchurched masses of America need the church to declare it is a compelling, stirring theology. A theology that isn't used to support the things the church has stood against; or a formula that promises you how to have the best life, the best marriage, the best children or the best job……its only a “decision” for Jesus away!
Rather it is desperate for theology that unpacks the bigness of the Gospel.

Scot McKnight suggests that this “personal salvation” Gospel is deconstructing the church.

So my idle hour surfing the website of some bold risk taking church planters has convicted me. January 2012 will see me join the movement that is boldly declaring that our problem is not so much that our God is too small, but our Gospel is too small.

Starting January 1, 2012 ……..until the end of May we will be making sure that the Gospel this church is preaching is the same Gospel as Jesus preached.

Why Catholics Are Right ..... but too small

So I’m reading a book called Why Catholics Are Right.
Just wondering. Always good to check.

The author Michael Coren (somewhat controversial Canadian TV talk show host) spends most of his introduction defending his strong title. “Sounds a little proud”, some of his critics said; “it might offend people” others suggested – but he decided to stand strong on his audacious title.

And it is audacious.

It is politically incorrect.
It is insulting to all other branches of Christianity let alone other Faiths.
It is offensive to any sense of tolerance.
It is downright arrogant (even if written humbly) as it loudly tells everyone else – they are wrong.

If Coren had used other words such as “better” or “good” or even “more right” which perhaps isn’t the best English but is kinder, people’s charge against him might only have been he is wrong rather than he is insulting/proud/offensive/arrogant.

But all of the above isn’t how I feel about his title.
It’s not offensive, or arrogant sounding, or proud, or insulting to me.

It’s about time someone used the word right.

Surely believing something necessitates that you are convicted, persuaded, convinced that what you believe is right.

Is this not the very nature of truth?

Truth can’t be partially right, partly right, or maybe right.
Truth has to be right – or it’s not truth.

So, thank you Cohen for defining the nature of truth.
Right is right even when it’s politically incorrect, arrogant, offensive, or proud sounding.

As Cohen himself writes “to believe something is, self-evidently, not to believe something that is its contrary.”
Therefore to be a Catholic necessitates believing that Catholicism is right.

The remainder of Cohen’s book is him detailing the views of the Catholic Church – and he is right about these views.
BUT is truth about views, about propositional statements, about a set of beliefs?
You can be right about views – but right about views does not equal right about truth.

Enter another book I am reading as I prepare to preach through Mark’s Gospel in 2012.

The King Jesus Gospel: The Original Good News Revisited @ Scot McKnight.

Its early days in my reading (only page 48) but already McKnight is challenging static rightness. He redefines the Gospel to the fullness of what it is and that fullness is not defined by a list of views or the rightness of beliefs.

Jesus is not a right to be believed, he is a way to be lived. You do the Gospel rather than believe the Gospel.

Here emerges the problem with Cohen’s rightness – and everyone else’s rightness (mine included). Rightness implies we can arrive at it. We can complete it. We can hold it all in a book, a list, a box.
Rightness shrinks.

So, if Catholics are right ….. or Protestants, or Baptists, or Evangelicals, or Pentecostals, or Emergents ….. its too small being right.

There’s something bigger than right. There’s Jesus.

100 Pages A Day Diet

I only really have two hobbies.
One is watching English Premier League football (soccer for you yanks!).
With shock I read that Direct TV were about to lose all their Fox channels including my beloved Fox Soccer. Please note this is the only FOX channel I approve of! If fact my prayers were torn as I feel the world would be a better place without FOX News …..but as usual my selfishness dominated. So I prayed for it to remain - and God intervened to ensure I (whom the world revolves around) still got my weekend fix of five Premier League football games. Ah - bliss (especially when the family leave for the afternoon and I get the couch, the chocolate and the TV controls to myself).

My second hobby is buying and reading books.
But, for the past few months while my buying has not subsided, my reading had. The pile of books on my desk was growing beyond what I was reading. So I’m officially on a "100 pages a day minimum diet" – the only diet where more is better.

The only way to tackle this diet – buy some really good books to get me started.
So here’s my list of what I’m using to start my reading diet:

Peter Rollins has just written his third book Insurrection: To Believe is Human, To Doubt, Divine. Yet again he stretches you theologically with a strong philosophical bent. Aargh. Took all of Saturday afternoon (after 4 football/soccer games watched) to finish this off. A wonderful blend of orthodoxy and nearly heresy!

Jim Collins’ new leadership book Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All. It’s even better than his bestseller Good to Great. Fascinating case studies of some of our best known companies and why they are still around.

1Q84 @ Haruki Murakami. Eh ……a racier novel than I thought (it should be R rated). Some have termed it the grandest work of world literature since Roberto Bolano’s 2666. Most critics loudly applaud it – the Guardian called it ‘a global event in itselff’. Its loud praise caused me to buy it ….662 pages in and counting. Intriguing. And no I am not recommending it (like when we show a clip from a TV show during our preach - doesn't mean we are recommending it! Don't blame me if all your kids are watching GLEE!). But by saying that I realize you will all now go and buy it. You sad bunch of people who respond the wrong way to the word ‘racy’.

Simply Jesus @ NT Wright. Yet again NT at his scholarly best. No wonder some call him the world’s leading New Testament scholar. Great reading as I get ready to preach Mark’s Gospel for 4 months in 2012.
Yes it is rather weird jumping from 1Q84 to Simply Jesus!!!!!

100 pages a day diet.

Easier when you are reading good stuff.

So my diet plan for the next few weeks:

Why Catholics are Right @ Michael Coren.
Steve Jobs @ Walter Isaacson
God is Red @ Liao Yiwu
Churchill @ Martin Gilbert
The Tenth Parallel @ Eliza Griswold
GK Chesterton: The Apostle of Common Sense @ Dale Ahlquist

Any other recommendations??