July 18, 2008

New Christians VS. Vintage Jesus (Part 3)

I want to thank Chad Hall for taking the time to read the book and giving me some helpful feedback in his review. I also appreciate the opportunity to respond and will seek to do so graciously.

(Read Chad Hall's review here.)

First, the accusation that I am humble is scandalous. I have said some things over the years that I regret. Meditating on the fact that God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble, God shook me deeply. Today I am, as a friend says, a proud man pursuing humility by the grace of God. I appreciate Chad’s insight that humility is knowing one’s place in God’s plan because I find it helpful and truthful.

Second, as a loving push back, I would say that my goal in the book was not to say anything new, but rather to say things that are timeless in timely ways. Admittedly, the person who graduated from seminary ten years ago and is now in ministry like Chad, might not resonate as deeply with Vintage Jesus as the twenty-something who is as lost as Dick Cheney in the woods—which was the primary audience I had in mind when I wrote. The feedback I am getting from younger, less theologically trained people is very encouraging and the sales of the book to young folks have remained strong by God’s grace.

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Posted by UrL at  July 18, 2008 | Comments (17)

July 17, 2008

New Christians VS. Vintage Jesus (Part 2)

As writer, I am always thankful for reviewers who are thoughtful and evenhanded. I’m afraid that Chad Hall is neither.

(Read Chad Hall's review here.)

Firstly, I clearly do not write that the emergent movement is the exclusive purveyor of the reformation that is currently underway in Christianity. I make it clear in the pages that Mr. Hall cites that it is the gospel that is red-hot lava, bursting through the centuries of accoutrements that have been collected by the church. It would, indeed, be the height of arrogance to suggest that the emergent movement and the gospel are one-and-the-same, but I do no such thing. Instead, I write (and believe) that there are major, tectonic shifts taking place in the church, and the emergent movement is part of that landscape.

Next, to caricature my treatment of convention and traditional Christian worshippers as “crusty old Christians†is, of course, Mr. Hall’s right, but it does not accurately reflect my feelings or my writing on the subject. I am frustrated by the reified theologies of the Protestant right and the reified bureaucracies of the Protestant left—and I make no bones about that—but I refer throughout the book to my own journey through those systems and with those people. Indeed, my parents are among those people.

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Posted by UrL at  July 17, 2008 | Comments (24)

July 15, 2008

New Christians VS. Vintage Jesus

If you’d asked me two years ago if I was part of the emerging church movement, I would have thought for a second and said, “Yes.†When asked today, I pause for half a second before saying, “No.†The New Christians and Vintage Jesus helped me clarify my journey from Yes to No.

I found one book insignificant and the other inflated.

Let’s start with the insignificant. I admire Mark Driscoll for doing significant stuff. He’s planted a thriving church in a place where it’s tough to do ministry and helps lead one of the more successful church planting networks around (Acts 29). I cracked open Vintage Jesus anticipating something important. Based on the title, I expected Driscoll to pop the cork on an enduring theology that over time increases in flavor and potency. But the book was more flat Coke than fine wine.

I did not find Driscoll’s book very interesting. About a third of the way through the book, my mind traveled back a decade to my first week of seminary. As a preaching newbie in need of guidance, I checked out an old, small book on preaching that started by saying something like, “If your sermons are not interesting, you’re missing something because God is infinitely interesting.†The notion that conversations about God should be interesting resurfaced as I read Vintage Jesus and caught myself muttering, “Yeah, yeah, yeah… so what?â€

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Posted by UrL at  July 15, 2008 | Comments (68)

July 11, 2008

Felt-Needs and Messianic Marketing

Conventional ministry wisdom goes something like this: When launching a new church, first analyze the felt-needs within the target area or population. Then construct ministries to address those felt-needs. Felt-needs based ministries will draw people to your church, and simultaneously positively predispose seekers to the gospel message. In this scenario, caring for peoples’ felt-needs plays a supporting role in the mission.

What if this conventional wisdom is wrong?

The idea outlined above is what I was taught in seminary, it’s what I read frequently in ministry books, and it’s what I see practiced virtually everywhere I go. But I increasingly suspect that the theological foundation for felt-needs based ministry may be sand rather than stone.

The biblical rationale comes primarily from the gospels. Jesus, it is thought, performed miracles in order to confirm the content of his preaching. His “acts of power†(the word “miracle†is rarely used in the Greek-language gospels) function as validation for his verbal proclamation. In other words, you should believe what Jesus says because look at what he can do.

Translating this principle into contemporary ministry, we are told that identifying and satisfying felt-needs will confirm and validate the gospel we preach—and hopefully draw a crowd the way Jesus’ miracles did. But there are a few problems with this understanding.

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Posted by UrL at  July 11, 2008 | Comments (13)

July 10, 2008

Out of Context: Dave Gibbons

"I love the church. It's God's vehicle for transformation. But I don't want the church to become so centralized that it can't reproduce, can't adopt multiple forms. And that works better when you're small, when you're on the verge, on the edge. Small is the new big. Big isn't bad, but it's overrated."

-Dave Gibbons is pastor of NewSong Church in Irvine, California. Taken from "On the Verge" in the Summer 2008 issue of Leadership journal. To see the quote IN context, you'll need to see the print version of Leadership. To subscribe, click on the cover of Leadership on this page.

Posted by UrL at  July 10, 2008 | Comments (4)