In the last post I wrote (see:below) I talked about issues around Authority in contemporary church models. In essence, I argued that a heirarchical approach to leadership is found nowhere in the New Testament outside the fact that Jesus is our leader, teacher and master (Matt 23:8). While a rant is all good and well, I didn't really demonstrate any desire to change the situation. What is the point of writing a post such as the one below which risks causing so much cynicism and destructiveness without suggesting ways we can better ouselves and the church in this area? Discussion of these issues is all very well and good, but if it doesn't translate into altered practice or methodology then it's just a big fat less-than-intellectual wank.
So in response to this God has really shown me this week that there is hope for the church. There is hope for this sick and disabled body of Christ to become better, to become the representation of Jesus we are meant to be. Earlier this week I had the chance to sit down with a fellow young pastor from a fairly new Wellington Church. In practice we have some serious differences in the way we go about ministry, yet somehow this year we have managed to come togeher in working to reach the young people of Wellington. Recently some of our different ideas on ministry have come to a point where polite avoidance of the issue was no longer an option.
On Friday morning outside a Wellington cafe we caught up and began to thrash some of this out. I explained to him how Church success cannot be measured in numerical terms and how the individual's well-being must be of chief concern to any pastor; in response he explained that a community without goals or objectives is likely to go nowhere. Both are truths of who God is. He wants us to believe for big things I'm sure, but we must also be willing to leave the ninety-nine for the one when the situation calls us to. As we raised voices and exchanged blows on ideas and methodology it only became clearer and clearer that we were on the same page. We shared our stories about where we've come from and what Jesus has been doing in our lives and it wasn't long before the differences began to fade away. EVERYTHING pales in comparison to the cross of Christ.
It is as my friend Brook reminds me often, 'Unity is not seeing eye to eye, it's looking in the same direction.'
You see I reckon that movements and practices become a lot harder to get angry with when they have a name and a face. I remember having an amazing conversation with Ben Kendrew about his church (Arise, Wellington) while we were away on retreat. I shared that his expression of church scares the crap out of me, while he suggested maybe Blueprint could stand to get a little more excited about God from time to time. Yet again, both represented truths of who God is. My frustration is that we have these amazing discussions through the safety of blogs and forums yet often fail to build relationship with those who might challenge our theology or practice.
An example of this would be the rift between Emergent and Evangelical movements in the States. These two stances have distanced as far from each other as possible, when in reality they will be the strongest and most accurate body of Christ if 'the conversation' included both sides. Too many read books and listen to sermons that simply support their existing position. How can we expect to grow and find a truer expression of the gospel without deliberately engaging in conflict with those who we think have completely missed the boat?
Without doubt I will soon swing back the other way when Harvest Crusade comes to town again. But until then I'm sure that our greatest hope for correcting each other is through the deliberate pursuit of healthy conflict and discussion. We need to develop a gaze that looks for where God is moving, not just where he isn't. The only way to change a movement is one person at a time.
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