a radical minimum standard [part the seconde]

Excerpt from Erwin McManus ‘an unstoppable force’ (available from Loot – http://www.loot.co.za/refer.html?referrer=85894849355 – for R170)

[continued]

HOW MANY TIMES DOES HE HAVE TO CALL?

Why are there so many levels of Christian calling in our contemporary Christian community? Where are they found in the Biblical text? I have a strange suspicion that the nuances of these “callings” have less to do with theology and more to do with the condition of the church.

Paul seemed to think that there was one calling. He writes to Timothy, “So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord, or ashamed of me his prisoner. But join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace.” (2 Timothy 1.8-9a)

The Scriptures seem to simplify the process of calling. The one call is to lay your life at the feet of Jesus and to do whatever He asks. It is a calling that says “to live is Christ and to die is gain” (Philippians 1.21). It is a calling that declares, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the  body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2.20) It is the calling that challenges us to make ourselves a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, that we may know and do His will.

An honest evaluation of the dramatic number of callings that the church has created would reveal that we have found extraordinary ways of describing the overwhelming amount of Christless living in the church. If we got the first calling right, would any of these other callings be necessary?

Jesus said, “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.” He did not say, “Believe in Me so that you can go to heaven.” In fact, He lays down extraordinary criteria. He said, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Me.” He expands by saying, “Unless you hate your father and mother, your brother and sisters, your wife and children, yes even your own life, you cannot be my disciple.” He is emphatic in the condition that unless we deny ourselves, we cannot be His disciples. He describes the response to His calling as the end of ourselves. If we try to save our lives, we will lose them. But if we lose our lives for His sake, we will find life.

LET’S CALL IT WHAT IT IS

What we now consider to be the highest level of calling in the Christian community was, for Jesus, the basic entry point. It was to the whole church that Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything” (Matthew 28.19-20a). It was to the whole church that Jesus said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1.8).

In the process of creating a theology that accommodates apathy, disinterest, compromise, and even rebellion, we have lost the essence of the movement for which Jesus died. We made a mistake of making heroes out of those who were simply living a normal Christian life. There may be no more significant ingredient to the apostolic ethos than establishing a radical minimum standard. The gatekeepers for our culture are not the heroes or supermen, but the common person. The individuals who represent the ideal inspire masses to pursue the values and virtues of their people; but it is the common person within each society who establishes the boundaries that are required to remain a part of the clan. It is not the extraordinary standard but the minimum standard that is the critical boundary in shaping a culture. To unleash an apostolic ethos, it is essential to establish a radical minimum standard.

It’s easy to confuse the minimum with the extraordinary. We do it all the time. In fact, organisations continuously face that crisis. Whenever someone fails to live up to an understood expectation, we are forced to make some kind of re-evaluation. Either our standard should change or our actions have to change.

When we live below a standard, it is simply human nature to redefine the standard as unreasonable and establish standards which that our patterns are already accomplishing. We keep lowering the bar until we clear it…

[to be continued]

a radical minimum standard [part the firste]

Excerpt from Erwin McManus ‘an unstoppable force’ (available from Loot – http://www.loot.co.za/refer.html?referrer=85894849355 – for R170)

Wow this last chapter of the EM book i’ve been reading resonated so hugely with my spirit i had to share (go and buy the book!):

A RADICAL MINIMUM STANDARD

On August 20, 1978, I walked to the altar at the first Baptist Church in Orlando, Florida and gave my life to Jesus Christ as my Lord. I remember standing there, looking up at Jim Henry, the pastor of the congregation, as he held his Bible and asked the question, “Do you confess Jesus as Lord, and will you obey His Word?”

I have to admit that, at that moment, I had virtually no idea what was inside the Bible other than what I had learned from Brother Jim’s preaching. It could have been a copy of ‘War and Peace.’ It could have been a leather-bound version of ‘Winnie-the-Pooh,’ but I figured if it was connected to Jesus and affirmed by this people I had come to trust, it was good enough for me. I was genuinely a blank slate to the whole process of what it meant to be a Christian. Soon I discovered that I had a terrible misconception of what I had done on that Sunday night.

After I left Orlando and returned to college, i ran head-on into a layered view of Christianity. I began learning that it was necessary to not only receive Jesus as your Saviour, but also to accept Him as your Lord. I learned this not only through osmosis, but also through listening carefully to Christian vernacular from people who claimed to be Christians, yet who somehow lived extraordinarily worldly lives. It was explained to me that these people had Jesus as Savious but not as Lord.

Another misconception I had was that every Christian was called to proclaim the Gospel. I remember coming home from college around Thanksgiving and sitting in a room with a bunch of guys. I pondered aloud about how amazing g it would be when all of us ended up all over the world, telling people about Jesus. Everyone else in the room proceeded to tell me that they did not feel called to “preach the Gospel.” They explained to me that required a “unique” calling.

So now I had discovered that there were at least three callings: a calling to be saved, a calling to Lordship, and a calling to ministry. Again, this concept was confirmed by simple observation. There were all kinds of Christians who were not involved in ministry. In fact, in most places only the pastor seemed to do ministry. Sometimes his wife would, but not always. Ministry was what pastors did in relationship to their congregations. If you were called to the ministry, then your focus was to care for and nurture the Christians in your congregation.

Later I discovered there was even a higher level of calling. At a missions conference the speaker began inviting people to give their lives to missions. I was somewhat confused since I was still a new Christian. I asked the person next to me what the invitation was specifically asking for. She said, “If you feel that God is calling you to missions, to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world, then you’re supposed to go forward.” I went forward again.

This was my third calling. I went forward for the purpose of salvation, I went forward to respond to a call to full-time ministry, and now I was going forward in response to a call to be a missionary. But this time I discovered that there were two levels of missionary calling. One was to be a home missionary and one was to be a foreign missionary.

So now I had discovered five levels of calling from God – a calling to be saved, a calling for Jesus to be Lord, a calling to ministry, a calling to home missions, and a calling to foreign missions. These five levels of calling don’t even take into consideration my conversation with someone from the Church of God of Prophesy in which I was told about my need to be sanctified. They don’t take into account my engagements in the charismatic community, where it was explained to me that I needed to receive a second baptism…

[to be continued]

not for what we don’t do but what we do do

When we focus on character development, we usually emphasise the elimination of sin. What it means to be holy then finds its definition in things that we do not do rather than things we do. This focus can be easily understood and justified. Certainly a significant part of our spiritual journey is the putting off of the old. Early on in the process, the dominant conversation between God and us seems to be about some very concrete lifestyle decisions. Right up front we learn that we should at least begin to live by the standards of the Ten Commandments. If you’re a new Christian, it’s extraordinarily confirming when you choose to avoid murdering, committing adultery, lying, and stealing. And it makes perfect sense when you stop worshipping false gods and worship only the true and living God.

The problem is not the insignificance of these areas of change, but that we tend to make them the entire construct for spiritual formation. It’s as if all God is trying to do is stop us from sinning. Yet all of us who have walked with Christ know that there’s more. We know that beyond being greedy is being generous, beyond lying is being truthful, beyond pride is humility, and beyond slander is encouragement. It is not enough to “put off.” We must also “put on.” All of us are encouraged when we begin to see the fruit of the Spirit born in the lives of followers of Christ, reconfirming the work of God in the human heart.’

[Erwin McManus, ‘an unstoppable force’ – page 180 in chapter ‘Soul Environments’]

of fireplaces and fireworks

‘Sometimes we forget that God is fire. We confuse Him with fireplaces and fireworks. We tend to think of Him as a fireplace when we make God too much our friend, as if He were a peer. We sometimes conclude that God is our co-pilot helping us along the way while we remain the pilot. This is the kind of fire that warms you and keeps you comfortable, while at the same time remaining a safe distance away. The fireplace is contained and controlled. But a God-like fire is much different.

Sometimes we see God too much as fireworks: the ecstatic experience of shallow celebration or worship that takes us high but leaves us low. It is the fireworks of praising God on Sunday and forsaking Him on Monday. The fireplace and the fireworks each create an illusion of the fire.’

[Erwin McManus, ‘an unstoppable force’ – page 179 in chapter ‘Soul Environments’]

how about we start starting when…

‘The entire nation of Israel operated on a Sunday to Friday calendar. Saturday was the Sabbath – no work, no play, and no good works. Saturday was the holy day, and all who would give homage and honour to God would keep the Sabbath holy. Right out of the gate, the church moved the holy day to Sunday. On the Sabbath, Jesus was still dead. On Sunday, He rose from the dead. I have to imagine that this timing was important to God. The church started meeting when Jesus showed up. This is an excellent process to follow.’

from ‘an unSTOPPABLE force’ – erwin mcmanus, pg 86

EW: Give up on Keeping up!

another excerpt from Erwin McManus ‘an unSTOPPABLE force’ – just buy it already!

‘And though i’m advocating our need to become a movement, I would like to encourage you to give up on keeping up.’

then a little later:

‘The first-century church didn’t keep up with its time, didn’t spend its energy keeping up with its time. The first-century church changed time. It rewrote history. It radically impacted culture. The church was the forerunner, not the runner up. And out of the church’s influence came the greatest art, the greatest music, and the greatest thinkers. Out of the church’s influence were born the cultures from which came Voltaire, Nietzsche, Einstein, Newton and Hawking, not to mention Jefferson, Franklin and Edison. The Michaelangelos and the da Vinci’s came right out of a context that Christ had radically shaped. I am not saying that they were all followers of Jesus Christ, but I am saying that they were all indebted to Him.”

and i just think this is solidly the key – the church should be setting the pace – one area where this is blatantly true to me and where God is calling me to be a voice is that of relationships – for too long the church has done relationships pretty much like the world has done relationships and hence we sit with the situation where the rate of divorce within the church is pretty much the same as the rate of divorce outside of the church. This is an absolute tragedy and the solution lies some part in us saying ‘waitasec, if we continue to do the things we’ve always done we will continue to see the results we’ve been seeing’ and start setting the trends and role modelling patterns of successful relationships [which are not easy - they require work and commitment and time and energy, but when you are married to the right person as i am then all of that is more than worth it and i deeply desire to serve my wife and love her and help her to be all she can be and to absolutely dominate in life] and becoming the benchmark, rather than sitting on the bench.

there must be more than this…

two of the questions

that i am grappling with lately:

one of them is taking the incredible life-transforming simple-gospel stuff we are reading about in books like Shane Claiborne’s ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ and Erwin McManus ‘an unSTOPPABLE force’ and Rich Stearns ‘The Hole in the Gospel’ and even going back to the legen….dary Keith Green’s ‘No Compromise’ story and not just being excited and ‘challenged’ and ‘changed’ by it, and not just talking about it and maybe looking down on others who ‘don’t get it’ and all that and when do we actually start doing it and being transformed and changed – do we actually ‘get it’ or are we just excited by the idea? that is a tough one and i know my biggest problem is knowing the ‘how’ cos i am excited and i do think it’s great and i do want to live the simple passionate compassionate miraculous life to the full Jesus calls us to, but practically what do i need to do? question one i am grappling with.

part of question one is how do i justify the fact that i just spent R600 on an Eddie Izzard dvd boxset but don’t feel i can justify spending R700 to R900 for me and tbV to go watch him live (i guess that could be a problem with justifying both as opposed to either one of them perhaps) but then also not being able to justify someone else wanting to spend R300 on make-up for a wedding? why is mine okay and theirs not okay?

linked to that question will be that my lavish will be simple and ridiculous to Bishop’s Court residents and Saudi Arabia moguls but my simple will be wasteful and lavish and dreamed of for a typical Kayamandi shack resident – wealth and poverty can be relative to an extent.

question 2 regards being pastory type guy at enGAGE, a congregation that is part of the Vineyard church in Stellenbosch – are we really effecting change in the community or am i realistically simply just maintaining a small community of like-minded people? as in really, like what is really really happening there? cos if this year is all about just looking after 30 to 50 Christians and trying to make sure they are all still Christian at the end of the year and maybe a bit more Christian, then what the flippy flipperson? there MUST be more than this.

not needing answers (well, not from you) – just needing to ask the questions…

an unSTOPPABLE force, part multiculturalism/diversity/unity

some more Erwin McManus from the book ‘an unSTOPPABLE force’ – From the chapter ‘Friction Traction’

On Multiculturalism:

‘The gospel, as presented in our time, has been crafted in such a way that would only bring Christians to Christ.’

‘Evangelism for much of the church has not been among unbelievers but focused on receivers – people who already accepted our worldview.’

‘The “great sociologist” Rodney King once said, “Can’t we all just get along?” The answer, of course, is no. We can’t all just get along. We’ve proven it time and time again in history. And it’s often not because of our extreme differences. One of the peculiar realities of crime and violence is that there is far more white on white, black on black and brown on brown crime than there is across colours and cultures. People who outsiders view as similar, whether it’s the Hutus and Tutsis, or the Bosnians versus the Serbs or the North against the South, often carry out the greatest conflicts. Civil war is as difficult to stop as international war. Multiculturalism has only accentuated the human inability to bring peace on earth.’

‘Jesus came and destroyed the dividing wall that not only separated man from God but also Jew from Gentile. God is about destroying walls that divide. The church will gain traction in the multicultural environment when she begins to dismantle the walls created not by the hands of God but by our own hands. Sometimes this will require nothing less than confession of the sin of racism and prejudice and the kind of repentance that leads to change. It isn’t enough to go to church with a diverse world, God calls us to embrace those who are different as brothers and sisters.’

“I WANT THE CHURCH!”… “you can’t han-dle the church!”

“When those who hold positions of leadership in the church of Jesus Christ stand opposed to the very heart of God and refuse to submit their lives to His Word, it is the death of life in that church.” [Erwin McManus, an unSTOPPABLE force]

that is just so true. i have seen it and i have been on the receiving end of it. and it always comes down to “me me me me ME me” – and it shouldnt be a surprise i guess because we saw it modelled thru-out the Bible – a lot in the Old Testament by Saul and David and Solomon in different ways, but then a very much lot by the disciples as Jesus tried to show them a most excellenter way – constantly vying for attention and position, they missed the point again and again.

BUT when the Holy Spirit got hold of them, this all changed and so there is hope… for even the deadest of churches and leaderships, but it is going to take God intervention for it to truly happy – no program, no book or seminar, no interventional leader is going to break-thru the rot and debris to get to the heart of the problem. only God. thru His Spirit.

which means when we encounter this knd of attitude or lifestyle or me-eadership our response has to be prayer – calling on God to rescue His church. after all, He definitely loves it more than we do.

Hs church. His mission. His problem. But our opportunity to draw alongside and cry out for Truth and Love and Hope and Life.

highly recommended book read on the church…

‘”We’re looking for a church that meets our needs.” It seems like I’ve heard this one a thousand times. The phenomenon of church shoppers has profoundly shaped the contemporary church. The entire conversation is not about relevance but convenience. The focus is not in serving the world; the church itself became the focal point. Our motto degenerated from “We are the church, here to serve a lost and broken world” to “What does the church have to offer me?” This move has made the pastor the only minister, while making the members the only recipients of ministry. What is lost in the process is an army of healers touching the planet.’

an unSTOPPABLE force: daring to become the church God had in mind – by Erwin Raphael McManus

my tag team buddy Sean Du Toit gave me this during my year of not reading and so i’ve been waiting almost a year to start reading and i am only on chapter none (yes ‘Atrophy’ is actually called chapter NONE) but i am loving it – have been to Erwin’s church which meets in a popular club in L.A. called Mosaic and i have never felt so welcomed in a church before (really believing the people were genuinely interested and not just on meeting duty – my younger cool sister Dawn and i went about two years ago and three different sets of couples totally stopped us and chatted to us and helped us out and stuff) and they combine art and music and present culture media with relevance and Bible teaching…

but yes, you do want to read this:

‘The servng that we are called to requires contact. You cannot wash the feet of a dirty world if you refuse to touch it. There is a sense of mystery to this, but it is in serving that the church finds her strength. When she ceases to serve the world around her, she begins to atrophy.’

‘the church has become a fortress from the world rather than the hope of the world’

and this bit is hectic:

‘From athlete to actor, musician to politician, both those who advocate the heart of God and those who seem to war against Him have many times been the product of the Western church. The problem has not been that these individuals of significant influence were outside of the sphere of the church’s influence, but that, in fact, they sat in the centre of the church and remained unchanged at the core.

America’s best atheists are children of the church. It is rare to find a person who is a passionate enemy of the church who has never had contact with her.’

and as you look around the big churches in Cape Town and Stellenbosch you see and hear the same things – not saying that the churches are not involved in good things and in a lot of service (would be interesting to see what percentage of each church are involved in outreach/serving and how many are just there for the show) but it’s things like “good worship vibe”, “great preaching” and “good organised cell structures” or “cool people my age group” that are the reasons why people are being attracted to those churches for the most part – still have to hear “they have an amazing feeding scheme” or “kick-ass township outreach” as reasons why people join churches…

anyways, get this, read it, pass it on, do it.