From Chaplain Mike.

A difficult conversation today brought to mind Luther’s Small Catechism and what it has to say about the Eighth Commandment:

The Eighth Commandment.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

What does this mean?

Answer.
We should fear and love God that we may not deceitfully belie, betray, slander, or defame our neighbor, but defend him, [think and] speak well of him, and put the best construction on everything.

Our Open Mic question today is a practical one:

How do you think your life and mine would be different if we lived by this standard? What would it be like in Christian congregations? How might our relationships with our neighbors and the world in general change?

I know the first thing I would do—cry out to God for mercy, using Isaiah’s prayer: “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips…” (Isa 6.5)

Your turn.

A note from Chaplain Mike:
This classic iMonk post from January 2009 brings together a few important issues that Michael has written about over the years, particularly depression, theology, and the search for a church home.

I am going to write rather directly to those of you who feel that you are experiencing some measure of mental anguish, anxiety and depression in regard to theology and, especially, the church.

I have in mind, particularly, those who are tormented about the so-called “Search for the true Church.” I’ll be relating at least some of this to the subject of depression, which has been a major part of the menu here at IM this past week.

1. Depression has a variety of causes, from strictly bio-chemical to completely event related. There is no simple, one-note description of depression. If you are confused about what is depression, find a diagnosed and successfully treated person and let them describe to you what depression was like. Read a few accounts of depression. Realize it’s not just being down or feeling bad. It is the closing in of the mind, hope, and clarity. It is a kind of abyss and it doesn’t give up easily.

2. A particular person’s depression has a trigger (or triggers), and a route and a resolution (or resolutions.) All are part of depression, but each part is different for each person. Some triggers seem non-existent. Some are unfathomable. Some are obvious. Some resolutions come from treatment. Some out of nowhere. Don’t generalize from any one situation.

3. Some depressions come and go and are never cured. Some end in tragedy. Some come once and go away. You won’t know.

4. Pastors and Bible teachers (and bloggers) are not to be trusted as expert authorities on depression. See a licensed pastoral counselor and a medical doctor. (I am neither. If you write me a long letter describing your depression, I will tell you that 1) I’ve prayed for you and 2) go see a doctor.)

5. Is depression related to theology? A better question is this: Are persons with tendencies toward depression likely to get involved in theology? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They get involved in church looking for love, acceptance, God, truth, community, help. All the big holes we all carry around. They bring their intellect into the arena of Bible teaching or preaching. They bring their heart into the church as community and experience. They take seriously what preachers and teachers say is serious and important. When someone says “the Bible teaches this,” or “the Church has always believed that…” they take it in. When depression comes- for whatever reasons- theology is going into the experience. GOD is a big word to someone who really believes that God matters in everything and that GOD is working through the church.

6. I think it’s also something like this: Some human beings are susceptible (in varying measures) to the “unsolvable puzzle” syndrome. This can happen in any discipline: math, music, medicine or theology. There are people that have to raise a perfect kid. There are people that have to have the perfect body. I heard Ron Block, banjo player for Allison Krauss, say that his perfectionism in the studio almost cost him his job with Union Station.

So there are people who get into predestination or various Biblical issues or some aspect of the mind of God or religious truth and they don’t ever solve the puzzle. It won’t cooperate. If they begin to associate that unsolved puzzle with their life, feelings, GOD, etc., then you can have a volatile mix laying the foundation for problems.

Notice that there are some people who are able to leave the questions of theology and “unsolvable puzzles” in the book and be perfectly happy. My father-in-law is a bright theologically and Biblically astute guy, but he can shut the book, or teach the lesson, give his view, accept that we aren’t going to answer all the questions before lunch and go back to work. He’s been a happy Baptist his whole like with no axes to grind at anyone else.

7. Look at the pages of intense apologists for a particular kind of tradition or denomination. Triablogue or Bryan Cross, for example. Now realize this: there are a percentage of people that are driving themselves into depression and anxiety hell because they aren’t that certain, that confident and that knowledgeable. There is a much larger section of the population that either don’t care, say “good for them,” or just don’t see the need. If you are in the first group, if you believe you need this level of knowledge and certainty to know for sure, for certain, for real that this is THE truth, THE absolute truth, THE truth from God, THE truth that answers the questions, then you are, in my view, a fairly high target for depression, obsession, anxiety and constant doubt and insecurity. Not necessarily, but higher than average, and I think our discussion this week bears that out.

8. You need to admit something: the voices you hear on the internet, in conferences, and in the bookstore are human beings with certain characteristics. They may be compulsive workaholics. They may be holy men of prayer. They may never sleep. They may be huge liars. They may have IQs of 170. They may have such low self-esteem that they can’t stop trying to prove their worth. They may be closet homosexuals trying to fight off the urges. They may be anointed of God. I don’t know….but I do know this: THEY AREN’T LIKE ME. I’m different. I’m me. I’m the person God made this way. I have a different set of motivations, sins, flaws, gifts and quirks.

This makes it pretty likely that I am never going to be as smooth as Keller. As arrogant as Driscoll. As productive as Witherington. As gracious as Challies. As smart as White. As confident as Macarthur. And they don’t blog/podcast as much as me:-)

The point is that the people selling you certainty or their brand of Christianity aren’t you. And those human differences make a huge difference. You may not be able to be that certain, etc. It’s just not you and won’t be. You will have to find another kind of happiness. If you want what is only in someone else, you’re headed down a road that isn’t healthy.

(BTW- there is a whole industry in most religions telling you that human factors don’t matter. That it’s all just doctrine. Bullxxxx. Look at the Reformed Baptists. Look at the Catholic apologists. Look at the LCMS stalwarts. Those aren’t “clumps” of similar personalities? That’s a forest and those are trees.)

9. Now, I want to get down to this matter of the One True Church. If you judge that you are a person who believes there is only one true denomination, then I believe you should check out the candidates from the RCC to the EC to the LCMS to the local Church of Christ (if you are in west Kentucky) and reduce your choices to the actual candidates. You simply don’t need to mess around with denominations that don’t believe there’s only one true franchise or that believe we are all part of the broken, fragmented body of Christ. If you are in a typical Baptist church and you really believe that Jesus made the successor of Peter the living authority, then go to the RCC…please. Whatever the issues are that are keeping you from doing that aren’t very important.

Now, if you say “I just don’t know….” you should keep reading.

10. I am a critical and analytical person. Send me to ten churches, and I will find ten things to like and ten things not to like at each one. I do not believe that any congregation is an expression of the one true church so much that there aren’t problems. But this is my nature. It’s EASY for me to see the brokenness and hard for me to see anyone’s claim to being the one, divine “it.”

Now, if I am convinced that one Denomination is right, my problem is going to be this: I still have to belong to a congregation, and a congregation is the place where the “essentials” are worked out in real life, not just in my head. So if I believe that the RCC has it right, I won’t be hanging out with B16 or Scott Hahn. I’ll be at Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility, a fine congregation that doesn’t have a piano, that has congregational meetings that make me want to be Shinto and a priest who thinks a homily is practice for his missed career in stand-up. Oh yes, the Catechism is in the church library, but THIS is where I am a member, out here where no one knows what I’m even talking about.

If I believe the Southern Baptist Convention is the church Jesus started, then I’m clearly insane, but for the sake of the illustration…..here’s this wonderful statement of faith, and a great missions network, and Al Mohler and those fine Calvinistic Ascol boys. But at my church….doctrine has been replaced with “How to be a great parent” sermons, the deacons have fired the last three pastors in less than 4 years, the music is a cross between an 80’s metal band made up of fat 45 year old men and the senior adult choir singing from the 1956 hymnal. We haven’t baptized a convert since 1993. Our current pastor looks like Ryan Seacrest and the youth minister looks like the Mindfreak guy.

That’s your church. Oh sure, you can drive elsewhere and you can improve. (I drive two hours each way.) You can work for improvement. You can do all that stuff. But here’s my point: You chose the one true denomination, you still have to deal with your local church. It is the place you do or don’t hear the Bible. It’s the place you do or don’t start churches and do evangelism. It’s the place you are or are not taught the faith you read about on that great web site.

The search for the one true denomination will drive some of you into depression, especially if you can’t admit that no such church exists and that you may never be happy if you find it. That every church is a compromise. That they all require you to live with some tension. You are convinced the LCMS has it right doctrinally? Great. Been to a local LCMS church lately? It’s a dice roll. That’s not an indictment. That’s the grown up world and it’s true across the board.

11. In his book Is the Reformation Over? Mark Noll makes this point very clearly. When you get Protestant converts to the RCC to answer researcher’s questions, they have a list of things they miss that’s not short or insignificant. Tears are shed. The broken body of Christ has the better sacramental thinking in one place and the better missional/evangelistic ministries in another. It’s the real thing. You want to be depressed? Go down the rabbit hole of endless despair? Just walk into ANY church saying “This is going to be great,” and forget how far short we all fall, how broken the body is, how much we all contribute to that brokenness.

There is no paradise in the SBC, the EO, the RCC, the megachurch, Redeemer Presbyterian, Mars Hill or the house church in Frank Viola’s living room. We’re all still working on this thing. We are all experiencing the brokenness and our part in it. We are all holding onto some part of the treasure, but none of us have it all. (Though as I said, if you believe someone does, then reduce your choices and go there.)

My friend Phillip Winn at the BHT is a good example. When I first met him on line, he was a member or a large Charismatic megachurch. Over time, he decided his family needed something more catholic and evangelical, so today he is a leader at a conservative ECUSA church working for renewal in that denomination. But Phillip is passionate about Jesus. He knows the flaws of his church. He knows the contributions his churches have made to the good and bad of the unity/disunity in the body of Christ. He loves his church, but his love for Jesus is what has transcended all the other aspects of his journey. If one church has nurtured that journey more than another, that doesn’t mean one is all right and the other all wrong.

Phillip is off the treadmill of looking for the perfect church. As a believer, he’s made a choice and he’s experiencing the ministry of Jesus in and through the church….imperfectly.

12. If you are depressed over this to the point of despair or atheism, I would advise you to step back; step back to the place you can see the goodness of God and the simplicity of faith. Move forward only as you are able to experience God along the way. If you believe God is playing a game with you, hiding the truth and holding out the carrot of really knowing Jesus if you choose the right door, please don’t go further down that road. God is good. Jesus love you. All that God has for you is there in Jesus, available to all who trust in Jesus alone by faith.

I read a message by Rick Warren on Christian Post today about belonging to the church. It got me thinking about the nature of the relationship that exists between evangelicals and the church.

Let’s talk about it.

Warren’s thesis is: “When we’re called to follow Christ; we’re also called to belong to the Body of Christ.”

After affirming that the Church is Christ’s spiritual body on earth, God’s instrument in the world, he identifies one of the biggest hurdles pastors face today: it is hard to convince people who attend church to commit themselves to the church family and become members.

Warren blames this on “today’s culture of independent individualism.” As a result, we have many “spiritual orphans who move from one church to another without any identity, accountability or commitment.”

Pastor Warren then gives several biblical reasons why we should commit and become members of the local church:

1. Belonging to a church family identifies us as genuine believers
2. A church family moves us out of self-centered isolation
3. A church family helps us develop spiritual muscle
4. The Body of Christ needs every one of us

He concludes with this exhortation:

We must remind those who fill our buildings each Sunday that joining the membership of a local church is the natural next step once they become a child of God. You become a Christian by committing yourself to Christ, but you become a church member by committing yourself to a specific group of believers. The first decision brings salvation; the second brings fellowship.

Here are some questions this approach raises for me:

• It seems, right from the start, that Warren is conceding the point that one can belong to Christ without being a member of the church. Membership in the church is a second “step” in the Christian life—important but ultimately a matter of choice on the part of the individual Christian. Is this disjunction between belonging to Christ and being a member of the church biblically and theologically sound?
• To what extent is “independent individualism” not just a cultural problem, but also an outgrowth of the kind of gospel we preach and the kind of churches we create in evangelicalism?
• Couldn’t one logically conclude from this approach that, in the final analysis, for evangelicals the church, though important, is ultimately optional?

The mic is open. As always, please keep the conversation civil and on point.

Here on Internet Monk, Michael has made no secret of the fact that he is a huge fan of pastor, author, and professor Eugene Peterson. And I am right there with him in my admiration of Peterson’s writings.

If you would like to go back and read some of what Michael has said about the man and his writings, here are some posts from the iMonk archives about Peterson:

March 4, 2005
August 22, 2007
January 31, 2008
Sabbatical Journal I
Sabbatical Journal continued
Sabbatical Journal conclusion

Though best known in popular circles as the author of The Message paraphrase of the Bible, it is Peterson’s earlier works on what it means to be a pastor and his devotional books and Bible studies that I have long loved and treasured as encouragements for my spiritual life and ministry.

The other day I received my copy of Eugene Peterson’s new book, Practice Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up in Christ. In this work, Peterson has his readers contemplate the message of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians to help us learn what it means to, “grow up to the full stature of Christ.”

This is the final book in Peterson’s “Conversations on Spiritual Theology” series. Each book is deeply insightful and well worth reading. The other four are:

1. Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology
2. Eat This Book: A Conversation in the Art of Spiritual Reading
3. The Jesus Way: A Conversation on the Ways that Jesus Is the Way
4. Tell It Slant: A Conversation on the Language of Jesus in His Stories and Prayers

I plan to put up several posts on what Eugene Peterson has to say in Practice Resurrection. I hope you will join the conversation.

In my view, Eugene Peterson has been one of the most thoughtful and eloquent critics of American Christianity. In the introduction to Practice Resurrection, he takes on the subject of how we have handled spiritual growth.

We cannot overemphasize bringing men and women to new birth in Christ. Evangelism is essential, critically essential. But is it not obvious that growth in Christ is equally essential? Yet the American church has not treated it with an equivalent urgency. The American church runs on the euphoria and adrenaline of new birth—getting people into the church, into the kingdom, into causes, into crusades, into programs. We turn matters of growing up over to Sunday school teachers, specialists in Christian education, committees to revise curricula, retreat centers, and deeper life conferences, farming it out to parachurch groups for remedial assistance. I don’t find pastors and professors, for the most part, very interested in matters of formation in holiness. They have higher profile things to tend to.

Americans in general have little tolerance for a centering way of life that is submissive to the conditions in which growth takes place: quiet, obscure, patient, not subject to human control and management. The American church is uneasy in these conditions. Typically, in the name of “relevance,” it adapts itself to the prevailing American culture and is soon indistinguishable from that culture: talkative, noisy, busy, controlling, image-conscious.

…Not long ago a pastor who has made an art form of pole vaulting from church to church told me that I was wasting my time on this, there was no challenge to it, it was about as exciting as standing around watching paint dry.

I suggested to him that most of our ancestors in both Israel and church have spent most of their time watching the paint dry, that the persevering, patient, unhurried work of growing up in Christ has occupied the center of the church’s life for centuries, and that this American marginalization is, well, American. He dismissed me. He needed, he said, a challenge. I took it from his tone and manner that a challenge was by definition something that could be met and accomplished in forty days. That’s all the time, after all, that it took Jesus.

For far too long now, with full backing from our culture, we have let the vagaries of our emotional needs call the shots. For too long we have let ecclesiastical market analysis set the church’s agenda. For too long we have stood by unprotesting as self-appointed experts on the Christian life have replace the “full stature of Christ” with desiccated stick figures.

That’s a powerful critique.

Peterson’s counter-cultural answer is for the church to “practice resurrection,” to learn to walk with Jesus in a reality that is not of our own making or controlling.

I can’t wait to see what he has to say. Hope you’ll join the journey and the conversation.

Today’s post is by guest blogger, Chaplain Mike

Those of you with sensitive ears, cover them for a moment. I’m about to utter a dirty word.

OBLIGATION.

Let me give you another one.

DUTY.

I confess to being partially accountable for the fact that these are dirty words to many today, for I grew up in the American Baby Boomer generation. We came of age in a society of rules and manners, of authority and expected norms of behavior. And we rebelled, hard.

My generation wrote “Question authority” on blackboards across the country. We grew our hair long. We wore jeans with holes and patches and girls cast away their bras. We publicly protested the war. We dug rock ‘n roll and advocated the recreational use of drugs. We promoted free love. “If it feels good, do it,” was another of our slogans.

We didn’t believe in respecting our elders simply because they were elders. After all, most of them were hypocrites, living by somebody’s made-up code on the outside, screwed up on the inside and behind closed doors. And don’t even talk about how messed up their politics were. For us, conformity was the worst crime (at least conformity to the norms of “good” society).

I saw this change happen and I remember when things were different. When I went to junior high, we had a dress code. For boys, no hair below the tops of the ears. Shirts tucked in. Belt required. No blue jeans, no sneakers. You said, “Yes, sir,” and “Yes, ma’am” when addressed by an adult. You asked permission to speak, and when you did you called grown-ups by their last names and appropriate titles.

You also went to church. That’s what good people did. It was your duty. It wasn’t your job to question such things, especially if you were a child or teenager.

But we didn’t like or accept this society of rules and duties. We felt obliged to nothing. Our duty was to be true to ourselves. We didn’t care about appearances; we wanted things to be “real”. We craved “authenticity.” We sought “experience” and when we copped a good high on something, we called it “truth.”

I had a spiritual awakening in 1974, became a pastor in 1978, and for more than three decades now have seen how this thinking has affected the church, particularly in the area of worship.

In most of evangelicalism, the old rules have been simply thrown out. The church has rejected principles of objectivity, tradition, form, repetition, and authority, and has replaced them with notions of subjectivity, spontaneity, freedom, and personal preference. It is no longer “the Divine Service,” it is “my worship.”

With an ever-growing bag of technological tools at our disposal to make it happen, Christians have more and more become a people for whom worship simply is not worship unless it gives me a tangible “high.” As a worshiper, I must have an “awesome experience” of God’s presence and power to feel like I’ve worshiped. God’s “truth” is defined as that which comes home to my heart with powerful emotions and a sense of being somehow “transformed.” The worship music of the past 40 years has by and large unashamedly focused on cultivating an ecstatic intimacy with God. Anything rote or not immediately appealing to the “heart” is cold, formal, and dead.

Pastors have joined the “get real” movement. They no longer wear the robe or hide behind a pulpit, but wander around a stage dressed casually, talking “authentically” about their own lives, dealing with topics that are “relevant” to their target audience.

In every area of the church’s worship—architecture, seating, music and the arts, order of service, sacraments, etc.—we seem intent on reworking and manipulating our practices so that they produce the most bang for the buck. For example, Willow Creek used to say the goal in their services was to create “moments” for people, moments of spiritual breakthrough, “aha!” moments, “wow” moments.

There is a whole lot of theology we could chew on with regard to this subject, but I simply want to introduce one contrarian notion to all this rubbish that says, “What I don’t feel can’t be real.”

Obligation.

Why do I worship God? Why do I attend a worship service and participate in it? The bottom-line answer is simply this: “Because I am obliged to do so.”

I owe it to God. I come to the worship service to give him his due. It is my obligation and duty as one created by God, redeemed in Christ, and baptized in the Holy Spirit to present offerings of worship and thanksgiving to him for who he is and what he has done for me.

Each week in the liturgy, we say:

Leader: Lift up your hearts.
People: We lift them to the Lord.
Leader: Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
People: It is right to give him thanks and praise.
Leader: It is indeed right, our duty and delight…

Note the emphasis here. It is “right” to lift up our hearts in worship to the Lord. It is “indeed right.” It is our “duty” to do so. Only when we’ve established that fact do any words of emotion or feeling enter in—“It is our duty and delight…” In fact, it may be that the “delight” only comes as part of fulfilling the “duty”!

We resist this because we do not understand the concept of “obligation” or “duty.” Many of us, when we hear those words, think of something that is required of us that we really don’t want to do. An obligation means a burden of responsibility that is unpleasant and unfulfilling. To fulfill a duty means to perform a tasteless task while gritting my teeth and wishing I were somewhere else. And all because of somebody’s “rules.”

These words need to be redeemed.

I worship God because it is my obligation to do so. But this is not because some cruel taskmaster has laid an unwelcome duty on me. No! It is my obligation because of the very nature of things. It is “right” because it is is congruent with reality.

• Because of who God is and because of who I am.
• Because he is the Creator, and everything in this universe, including me, was made by him.
• Because he sustains me every day of my life, granting me each breath and heartbeat.
• Because he is my Redeemer and Savior.
• Because he took note of my sinfulness and brokenness, took pity on me and gave his Son to die and rise again on my behalf, conquering sin and death for me.
• Because he is my Comforter and Guide.
• Because the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in my life, assuring me of the divine promises and writing God’s laws on my heart so that I may obey them.

Since everything I am and have has come from his hand, I am obliged to say “thank you.” It is my duty to bring my offering of praise. I owe it to him. I am fully aware that I can never repay him, and that is the last thing on my mind. I am simply recognizing my eternal debt to the One who made me and saved me.

Grasping this takes worship completely out of the realm of coming to a service to seek out an “experience” with God. Whether or not I have a “moment” is simply not the point.

The traditional liturgy of the church is designed first of all to enable worshipers to fulfill the obligation of giving thanks to our Creator and Savior for who he is and what he has done.

Whether I feel like it or not, I owe it to God.

Now I know some of you are going to point to the prophets and to Jesus and start throwing verses at me about the danger of going through the motions without putting your heart in it. And you are right. But you are talking about the diminished definition of “obligation” that we all grew up fearing.

The fact that something is a duty or obligation does not require anyone to do it as a mere formality. In fact, to truly recognize our obligation is the most foundational motivation of heartfelt obedience.

COMMENTS NOW CLOSED.

If anyone asks me why I go to church, I am not afraid to tell them: it is my obligation and duty. It’s simply the right thing to do.

Last year, here in Indianapolis, a four-year-old was taken by emergency personnel to the hospital with a gunshot wound. At first, it was not clear what had happened. The family told police the child had shot himself. The police weren’t sure that the preschooler was strong enough to have pulled the trigger of the suspected weapon by himself, and so they wondered if someone else had done it, perhaps a family member.

It turned out the family was correct. The little boy lived in a home with other relatives, at least one of whom had several guns. This uncle left one of his pistols on a bedside table and the child discovered it there. The preschooler picked up, played with it, and shot himself in the hand. Fortunately, his injuries were not life-threatening, though he did nearly sever one of his fingers. All in all, the whole family was lucky, including the little boy’s two siblings, neither of whom were hurt.

In evangelicalism, pastors too often play the part of the preschooler with the pistol.

The Bible is a powerful, explosive tool. When its power is used with wisdom and love, it brings healing, comfort, direction, and salvation. It forms people and congregations into the image of Christ. When its power is used recklessly and without discernment, the Bible can hurt, divide, and destroy. You can blow your own hand off, or someone else’s head.
At about the same time I read the account of that little boy, a friend told me a sad story about her small-town church, an established, independent Bible-believing congregation that has long prided itself for standing on the Scriptures and not the doctrines of men. They have a young pastor who has been with them only a few years. A while ago, he came to the “Biblical conviction” that they were not running their congregation according to what the Bible teaches about church polity.

At the time, they had a joint board of elders and deacons, which included women deaconesses as well. The board made decisions together as leaders of the church. The pastor did a study and concluded that elders alone should rule the church, that deacons should not be included in the decision-making process, and that in any case, women should not be allowed a vote as leaders on church matters. So, he put the congregation through an extended process to change this, and ultimately got his way through a congregational vote to alter the bylaws.

My friend was one of a vocal minority who spoke against this, and the pastor let her know that her lack of support had been noted. She didn’t tell me much about how others felt, or whether this situation threatened to divide the church. However, it was clear that she was troubled and concerned about the health of the church.

And then she told me the kicker—while all this was going on, the pastor has been actively pursuing a position in another congregation. He will be leaving soon, right after taking my friend’s church through this controversial process and forcing a change in the way they’ve done things for years.

I was reminded of the preschooler and the pistol. Here is a pastor who believes in the Bible, but does not appreciate its power, nor comprehend its wise use. His reckless application of God’s Word has wounded rather than healed God’s people. Now he’s going to walk away and leave it to someone else to stop the bleeding and clean up the mess.

Let me be clear—this is not about criticizing the decision this church made. People of faith can differ on church polity and women in leadership and a thousand other matters, and have for centuries.

No, my complaint is about a minister who does not understand Biblical priorities, who showed his lack of wisdom in elevating a matter of minor significance in the church so that it became a leading issue that now threatens to divide them.

The evangelical world has an authority problem. Protestants subscribe to Sola Scriptura (“Scripture alone”) as our source of authority for faith and practice, but we have far too little appreciation for proper interpretation and wise application of the Bible’s teaching. And too many churches and pastors, especially in the nondenominational or independent Christian world have little or no guidance in the process. The pastor or a small group of leaders, with the explosive power of the Bible in their hands, can easily use it to wound others and harm the church.

This raises several questions:

• In an “autonomous” congregation, which eschews “tradition,” what theologically sound and historically proven practices are there to provide perspective, structure, and guidance to a pastor and members of the congregation?

• In a small-town congregation, what pastoral mentor or overseer is available to tell a young minister, “Look, you may think you’ve discovered something in the Bible, but with regard to scriptural priorities, this is way down the list of things for a minister in your setting and situation to be concerned about.”

• In a nondenominational congregation, what experience or counsel from the larger community of faith is available to help them work through an issue that other churches have dealt with already?

“Scripture Alone” does not mean “My Bible and Me Alone.” Scripture is meant to be studied, interpreted, and applied within a community of faith that honors and respects history and tradition, the larger Body of Christ, and the wise counsel of respected spiritual overseers.

Instead, we have too many maverick ministers recklessly taking what they find on the bedside table and firing into the crowd that gathers at the church.

Chaplain Mike presents this original story, based on real events.

Lee was a writer and photographer, the kind of person who drew strength and energy from being alone and working on her arts. She and Frank had been married twenty-four years; it was a second marriage for both of them, each having divorced from unhappy first unions. Neither had brought children to the marriage and, after a few tearful arguments early in their life together, the subject of having kids never came up again.

Frank worked hard, long hours, and provided well for them, freeing Lee to pursue her artistic interests. Then, unexpectedly, a few years before retirement, he was diagnosed with cancer and almost before you knew it, Frank was bedbound and his free-spirited wife lost her liberty. She attended to his needs night and day, feeding him, helping him to the toilet, passing his medicines, and getting him up in the recliner where he watched TV, increasingly distant and dependent. At first she got out for an hour or two here and there, but Lee could see that those opportunities were diminishing; she became more and more afraid to leave Frank alone for fear he would awaken confused and fall out of bed.

And so Lee became despondent. Frank’s constant demands kept her from pursuing the solitude and creative work she needed to refuel her spirit. They had no family to help them, and couldn’t really afford paid caregivers. Lee discovered she had few human supports on which to lean, and she felt alone, helpless and hopeless.

But a new sense of spiritual hunger also grew in Lee. She began reading the Bible and thinking about church. She got some counsel from a friend, who answered some of her questions about what kind of church to look for, and who also encouraged her with the thought that being part of a church family might provide some help with Frank.

As Lee thought about this, she remembered that there was a new, large congregation a few blocks away, on the edge of her neighborhood. You could almost see it from her house. She decided to phone.

“Jericho Community Church,” the receptionist answered. “How may I direct your call?”

“I’m not sure who to talk to,” said Lee. “I live in the neighborhood and I’m wondering if you have anyone who could help me by coming to my house for a few hours to sit with my husband who has cancer.” And she told her story.

The receptionist transferred her to the Outreach Office. “Are you a member of our church?” the woman there asked her. When Lee said no, she offered to send an evangelistic team over to the house to talk with her and Frank. “But that’s not really what I’m interested in,” Lee protested. “Right now, I’m homebound because of my husband’s illness. I hope to visit your church soon, but what I really need at the moment is a volunteer who can help me by coming to sit with my husband for an hour or two a week. Can you help?”

Again she was put on hold and transferred, this time to the Small Groups Office. “Are you in one of our Care Groups?” she was asked. “We care for our members through a network of small home groups. If you come to church this Sunday, we could hook you up with one of our Care Group leaders and maybe you could find a group to be part of.” And once more Lee tried in vain to communicate her need. She finally hung up the phone with a sigh.

She moved to the front window and looked out, wondering where to turn next. As she watched, two men crossed the street and walked down the sidewalk opposite her house. For a moment, they glanced up and saw her lonely figure through the darkened glass. Then, redirecting their eyes, they walked on.

Lee watched until they reached the end of her street, and turned to walk south, to the church at the edge of her neighborhood.

By guest blogger Chaplain Mike

Spend any time at all around Internet Monk, and you will hear about the “post-evangelical wilderness.”

This is one of the phrases that first attracted me to Michael’s writings, and it is clear from reading those who have commented over the years that it has resonated with many.

What it means for me practically at this point is this: “church” is problematic for me right now.

Let me tell you why.

I served as a pastor in local churches for about 28 years. Starting out as a summer assistant in my home Southern Baptist Church right after Bible College, I helped the pastor during his recovery from back surgery. I moved to Vermont that fall to be near my fiancee, and was asked to serve an American Baptist congregation that had lacked a pastor for several years. We eventually moved to Chicago to complete my seminary training, and during my studies, I was asked to minister in an independent Bible church. After graduation, and failed attempts to get aligned with the Evangelical Free Church denomination in a pastorate, we moved to the Indianapolis area, where I served in two Community churches. These congregations were started by men from a United Methodist background (Asbury seminary), but were intentionally non-denominational and evangelical, with an emphasis on practical discipleship, missions, and church planting.

The second congregation I served here had been through a troubling experience, dismissing their founding pastor. I came in after him and was never quite able to turn things around. I was the proverbial “unintentional interim” pastor. After I resigned, we were suddenly homeless, ecclesiastically speaking. We wanted to stay in the community for family reasons, but there were no options for pastoral ministry. My ministerial ethics taught me that starting or serving in a church in the same community was bad form, so that was not an option. We were out of church; I was out of job.

Through a friend, God graciously opened a door into hospice chaplaincy for me, and this month marks five years in this good work. I love my situation, and feel in some ways that I have finally found a place where I can do true pastoral ministry, without the baggage that contemporary evangelicalism has placed on the pastor in a local church.

However, church is still a problem. These five years have forced me to do a lot of thinking about ecclesiology (the doctrine of the church). And as I write, I am still somewhere on the road out in the “post-evangelical wilderness” when it comes to feeling fully comfortable in church.

It affected our family. Upon leaving the ministry, for the first time in our lives, we were without a church home. This was especially hard on my wife, a classic “GUBA” (growing up born-again) who had been in evangelical churches since birth. To our children, who had struggled with being PK’s anyway, it was further confirmation that “church” was more about rules and people being judgmental than anything else.

To me personally, it confirmed doubts and fears that had been growing for years about the inherent insecurity of serving in non-denominational churches. There is no safety net. No structures to provide support, counsel, and guidance. No mentors on the “apostolic” level beyond the local church to help. I learned the hard way that what I had feared was true: the pastor in a non-denominational evangelical church—succeed or fail—is on his own. I had “failed” in the light of some unwritten standard so, vocationally, I was out in the cold with few options.

Pastoral issues were not my only concerns. For years, I’d had a growing dissatisfaction with evangelicalism’s lack of tradition, historical perspective, reverence and order in worship. I resisted its programmed approach to spiritual growth, its bourgeois commitments that blatantly disregard the NT emphasis on sacrificial service and inclusion of the poor and disenfranchised, its “temple” mentality that has little sense of serving Christ in daily life and instead revolves around what happens in the institution and its programs.

Evangelicalism’s lack of theological thoughtfulness and depth had bothered me increasingly over the years. I cringed at the moralism of its sermons, its “me and Jesus” approach to the spiritual life, the celebrity status of its pastors, the crass and unabashed commercialism of its media industries. The endless dissemination of Protestant groups, each claiming its own “biblical” way with no more authority than an open Bible and the assertion that the Spirit is leading strained all credulity that this was God at work.

Despite its name, I increasingly found little “evangel” (gospel) in evangelicalism. The place I thought was “home” proved no refuge, and we became homeless, launched on a journey of wandering through the evangelical wilderness.

Today, I’m still on the journey.

For some time now, we have attended a Lutheran church (ELCA). Long a fan of Luther and his grasp of the Gospel, I have found a place of rest in the Lutheran emphasis on grace. It has also become my confirmed belief that liturgical worship has it right. Those who practice the ancient forms of worship celebrate the Gospel. And no matter the weaknesses of an individual congregation or pastor, there is a place to stand and rejoice each week when we confess our sins, receive God’s mercy, confess the Creed, hear the Scriptures, are fed at the Table, and are sent into the world to live and serve in the grace of Christ.

However, despite strong historic connections and continuities, mainline churches like ours have their own serious and well-documented problems. This I accept. I have never been one to look for “the perfect church.” I know no such place exists, so my current restlessness and continuing sense of ecclesiastical disorientation springs from other sources.

For one thing, I  have enough “evangelical” in me that I still don’t feel like I’ve found my bearings in our current mainline setting. Serious Bible study, a strong emphasis on evangelism and missions, and other aspects that I still appreciate from my evangelical background and training are missing where we are.

I don’t worry that God is absent. He most definitely is not. But I am in one of those transitional places in life, one of those “in-between” places. I don’t fit in where I’ve been. And I’m not quite sure where I’m going.

Manna’s OK, but I long for milk and honey. It’s great that God keeps my shoes from wearing out, but I’m ready to kick them off in a place of real and lasting rest.

This is what the “post-evangelical wilderness” means to me.

What does it mean to you?

Please keep your comments as brief as possible. Feel free to express strong emotions, because this is personal. But stay respectful in what you say.

I encourage you to go back and read it HERE.

In that post, I made this comment: “I think it is what pastors and Christian people used to do, what they were expected to do. But something changed in the church.”

Over at the Out of Ur blog today, Collin Hansen cites and comments on a recent report that shows just how far we’ve come from those days when visitation, and pastoral visitation in particular, was considered an essential part of ministerial work.

Go read his observations, and then return to comment.

In the report, a woman named Lauren Green, who now attends Redeemer Presbyterian Church (where Tim Keller is pastor), recalled the days when she and her family shared

“a close relationship with their long-time pastor when she was growing up in Minneapolis. But she acknowledges that this model appears to be a quaint and outdated today.

“Today, it’s all about a personal relationship with God, not the culture of a church,” Green explained to Grossman. “And a megachurch or a multisite church can still offer this. If you are there to hear a message and it’s a powerful one, it shouldn’t matter how it’s delivered.”

Hansen comments:

“When Christians find a pastor who preaches a powerful message, they are willing to compromise elsewhere. They aren’t so concerned if he never visits them, never talks to them, or never even learns their name. Those tasks become the responsibility of a campus pastor and a small group of fellow members. But I still worry for the primary preaching pastors in this situation. They know their churches have grown due to God’s anointing on their sermons. So they naturally expect that sharing the pulpit will hurt church attendance and giving. The numbers drop when they go on vacation. Such a heavy preaching burden precludes them from spending much time with members. And even if they had more time to visit and counsel, where would they start?”

In contrast, Hansen quotes the famous Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, who deemed regular visits with all his parishioners essential:

“We must labor to be acquainted, not only with the persons, but with the state of all our people, with their inclinations and conversations; what are the sins of which they are most in danger, and what duties they are most apt to neglect, and what temptations they are most liable to; for if we know not their temperament or disease, we are not likely to prove successful physicians.”

Once again, I’m going to take my stand with Baxter and the traditional practice of pastoral visitation. Personally, I would never be comfortable pastoring a church that was too large for me to know every person and family by name. If I were in such a church, I would insist upon a “team pastoring” approach where every person designated as a pastor would be required to be involved in regular visitation to individuals and families where they live, work, play, and suffer.

And again, lest some of you think I am making this the sole responsibilities of the “paid staff,” I believe that this practice of visitation should permeate the atmosphere of the entire congregation. Christians ought to be a visiting people. It’s a face-to-face faith, folks. And the pastors set the pace.

Furthermore, I wholeheartedly reject the assumptions stated above by those who have become used to another way. I reject that the purpose of the church is to be a place primarily where a high-powered pastor preaches killer messages. Though I fully embrace the power of the Word, if churches are growing primarily because of what Hansen calls “God’s anointing on their sermons,” the churches are growing for the wrong reason and, IMHO, in ultimately unhealthy ways.

The sermon can be a “Sunday dinner” for sure, a special occasion for sumptuous dining on a weekly basis. But the church, according to the NT, is meant to be a thriving, interpersonal community in which the members “break bread” together daily, practicing the faith with each other from house to house, in the streets, gyms, workplaces, schools, hospitals, and marketplaces where we live and move and have our being.

Christianity as the Bible presents it and as it has been understood throughout church history is most certainly NOT about a personal relationship with God rather than the culture of a church, as the woman interviewed asserted. It DOES matter how a message is delivered.

Call me a curmudgeon. Call me “quaint and outdated.”

But that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Happy New Year!

If you or your church follows the Christian Year, you know what I am talking about. Yesterday was the first day of the church calendar, the first Sunday in Advent. The Advent season stretches over four Sundays and ends on Christmas Eve, when the celebration of Jesus’ birth arrives in full flower.

Advent is a time of anticipation, when we remember God’s promises and expectantly look for him to fulfill them in Christ. It is also a time of preparation, when we ask God to make our hearts ready to receive Jesus at his coming. Themes of Advent (which means, “the coming”) involve not only Christ’s first coming, but also his ultimate return to reign, when “every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess” that he is Lord.

Marking Advent can be one of the most counter-cultural activities in which Christians may participate. As the world around us works itself into a frenzy trying to keep up with holiday demands, believers can use this time for contemplation, spiritual practices, and simple good works of love for our neighbors.

The following video, “Christmas 101,” featuring Fr. Eric Dudley of St. Peter’s Anglican Church in Tallahassee, gives an overview of this season from a Christian perspective. I think you will find it winsome, engaging, and practical. Part 2 is due Dec. 6th.

I’d also love to hear from you about how you, your family, and your church practice Advent and prepare for Christmas.

MOD NOTE: Those of you from liturgical traditions: please help the uninitiated by defining terms and explaining practices that might be unfamiliar to those from other communities.

MOD NOTE: Has anyone watched the video? Responses? Would love specific feedback on Fr. Dudley’s teachings.

Christmas 101, Part I from St. Peter’s Anglican Church on Vimeo.