Will Willimon passes on four helpful questions for church leaders to assess their ministries:

In a recent conversation with my friend Lloyd John Ogilvie, he said that in his fifty years of ministry he has learned to ask himself four pastoral questions:

1. What sort of people does Christ want to deploy in the world?
2. What sort of church do we need to produce those people?
3. What sort of leaders do we need to produce that sort of church?
4. What sort of pastor do I need to be to produce that sort of leaders in that sort of church?

What wonderful questions I like the emphasis here on disciple-making as the point of pastoral work. Paul would probably call it “edification” of believers, but I like Lloyd’s stress on performance, enactment, and witness to the gospel as the purpose of it all. Ministry is known by its fruit and the test of my ministry is not only my fidelity to the gospel but also the production of saints. Truth to tell, fidelity to the gospel requires the calling and equipping of disciples, church turned inside out.

The “emerging church” has been attracting a lot of attention for a number of years now.  Unless one is willing to do a lot of reading (and I don’t care to), it’s hard to get an idea of what the movement is about.  Mark DeVine, who teaches history and theology at Beeson Divinity School, has been following the movement.  He is a contributor to a forthcoming book on the movement, and you can download a draft of his chapter titled The Emerging Church: One Movement–Two Streams.  I found it very helpful: he concurs with some critics such as D. A. Carson, but notes that Carson has evaluated just one part of the movement.  DeVine identifies a “doctrine-averse” wing and an “doctrine-friendly” wing to the movement.  DeVine finds much to appreciate in the “doctrine-friendly” wing.  If you’re wondering what this “emerging church” thing is all about, this could be a could place to find out.

John Botkin is the pastor of Bangor Baptist Church in Michigan, and a friend from seminary days.  He’s posted an article titled Becoming a House of Prayer and talks about a chapter on prayer he has written for an upcoming book on pastoral ministry.  You can download a copy of the draft of his chapter here.  I’ve downloaded and read the chapter, and I think it’s very well done.  I was challenged to be faithful in my own work of prayer as a pastor, and to lead our church to be a house of prayer.  John’s article also contains some helpful suggestions for doing both of these things.  Recommended, and not just for pastors.

I’m not always in agreement with Internet Monk, but often he says things that are not only true, but need to be said.  In a post titled Evangelism Won’t Cure It, Michael Spencer identifies a perennial source of self-deception among Southern Baptists, namely, that the problem of decline in the SBC would be reversed if only we would become more evangelistic, and therefore, what the SBC needs is an evangelistic campaign that everyone needs to get on board with.

Read the whole thing, but here is how Spencer wraps it up:

I love what the SBC does right.  I really do. My denomination can be awesome at some things, especially in the area of cooperative missions.

I’m not dogging evangelists.  I spend a significant amount of my time in evangelistic ministry. It’s one reason I will remain an evangelical.

Our denomination has some wonderful churches and some great people.

But let’s just say it:  We’re Johnny One Notes on evangelism because we don’t want to admit how flawed, hurting, confused and increasingly dysfunctional we are.

We need evangelism in its place, and that won’t happen till we stop and look at the whole, not just the parts we want to blame.

And 100,000 more baptisms won’t solve those problems.

Michael Spencer at Internet Monk, gave me food for thought with his post The “Real” Prosperity Gospel.  It is one thing to denounce the “name it and claim it” theology that promises that we can have health and wealth if only we have enough faith to believe God for it.  But Spencer responds to a commenter on his blog who suggests that those of us who reject the prosperity gospel often hold to a subtler form of it:

The real prosperity gospel isn’t the overt appeal to wealth. It is the more subtle appeal to God guaranteeing that we are going to be happy, and the accompanying pressure to be happy in ways that are acceptable and recognizable to the community of Christians we belong to.

The real prosperity gospel is the belief that God will- must?- keep things at a level where it’s still possible for us to follow Jesus without overt appeal to rewards in this life. The real prosperity gospel is revealed not in the promises of a yacht or a large home, but in the unspoken approval of a level of prosperity that allows us to live the Christian life on our own terms. It is the ratification of our private, sometimes entirely secret, arrangements with God of what his “goodness” means.

It’s the notion that, even if we are going through tough times, we can still be happy if we have Jesus Christ.  That if we ever lose our joy, we are somehow poor Christians.  We have to be careful not to teach, or give the impression, that if we are ever discouraged, sad or struggling, something is wrong with us or our faith.  God calls us to cast our cares and anxieties upon Him, He doesn’t promise that cares and anxieties with be absent from the lives of faithful believers.

Ben Witherington, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary, has posted part one of a review of Reimagining Church by Frank Viola.  In part one, Witherington deals with Viola’s assertion that the relationship of the members of the triune Godhead is essentially egalitarian, and therefore relationships within the church are to reflect the Trinity.  Witherington concludes:

So here is where I stress that ontological equality, and functional subordination have always been and always will be compatible, and the blueprint Godhead provides us with a reason to expect that in the church there will be a hierarchial pattern of ordering things. I would hasten to add that it does NOT lead us to expect that this pattern will involve a gender hierarchy. No, it will involve a leader and follower, shepherd and sheep, pastor and congregation, apostle and co-workers hierarchy— something Frank wants to avoid at all costs, seeing it as either inorganic or simply fallen human structures.

Alas, however, it is the divine design, mirroring the functional subordination that indeed has and does exist in the Trinity. When the Bible says ‘honor thy father (and mother)”, it never conceives of a day when somehow the son ever ceases to be a son, ceases to owe respect to the father, ceases to be ordered under the father in these ways. There will always be an ordering in that relation and so a hierarchy. Likewise, there never comes a day when the only begotten Son becomes the Father, or somehow the Father changes roles and becomes the only begotten Son. Equality and indeed mutual love and respect do not in any way necessarily rule out an ordering of relationships, or even functional subordination in such relationships either in the Godhead, or in Christian community. I am afraid that what has affected and infected this discussion is secular notions of equality that assume that equal must mean ‘the same’ in all respects, or ‘the same’ in all functions. But this is not what the Bible either says or suggests.

But, by all means, read the entire review the review for yourself.

Alan Knox at his blog The Assembling of the Church, discusses Stephen Catto’s Reconstructing the First-Century Synagogue: A Critical Analysis of Current Research.  In his post, Sacred Meals in the Synagogue,  Knox summarizes Catto’s findings:

Catto describes four “worship practices” that he says were common to first century synagogues. He says that those synagogues practiced 1) sanctity (cleansing or purity), 2) Scripture reading and teaching, 3) Prayer (including hymns), and 4) Sacred meals.

Yes, you read that correctly. Catto suggests that first century synagogue meetings included meals as a form of “worship”. In fact, he points out that many synagogue buildings included dining rooms for the meal.

Books like Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna have argued that the early church represented a radical break from the worship practices of 1st century Judaism.  They assert that the early church did not imitate the synagogues’ use of purpose-built buildings, and had a form of worship that was more a spontaneous, free-flowing time of fellowship, in which table fellowship was prominent.  Catto’s book suggests that the fellowship was not distinctive to the NT church.

Knox concludes:

If Catto is correct, and I have much more studying to do before I form an opinion, then eating and drinking together were considered a form of worship to some Jews around the time of the New Testament. Thus, the concept “breaking bread” together would not be a foreign concept to the new church. Certainly, there would be difference between the communal meals of the synagogue and the communal meals of the church. Primarily, for the church, Jesus Christ is both the host and the benefactor of the meal, and the meal provides an outward demonstration of the fellowship that the church possesses because of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I welcome examining contemporary church pratices in light of the New Testament. But I believe that much of the arguments presented by such writers as Viola and Barna rely on shoddy historical work, and, more importantly, portray a distorted view of the NT church.  Catto’s book, then, is potentially an important corrective.

Mark Altrogge, who I know primarily from his songwriting for Sovereign Grace Music, has written a blog post titled “The Pastor from Gehenna” that really gets to the core of one of my inner struggles as a pastor: how do we motivate people to live like disciples of Jesus?  Quote:

My job was to whip the saints into obedience against their will. Since they really didn’t want to serve God, I had to guilt or pressure them into it. I’d say things like, “Come on, let’s worship God like we really mean it.” How self-righteous I was.

Read the article for what Altrogge understands as the solution (and I would agree).

Christianity Today has an in-depth and insightful article on the Ancient-Future Church movement: “The Future Lies in the Past.”  The author, Chris Armstrong, attended the 2007 Wheaton Theology Conference which had as its theme “The Ancient Faith for the Church’s Future.”  The article provides a helpful introduction to the movement: its orgins in the 1970s; its key figures including Robert Webber, Thomas Oden, Thomas Howard (who, famously, later converted to Roman Catholicism), Peter Gilquist (who moved to Eastern Orthodoxy), and Richard Foster; and  the problems that the movement attempts to correct, as well as potential ways it can get things wrong.

My own interest in the movement came about in the 1980s,  when I was invited to attend services at St. Joseph of Arimathea, an Anglican church in Berkeley, Calif.  It appealed to me aesthetically: I enjoyed the Gregorian chants, the peaceful atmosphere, the simple, traditional architecture of the sanctuary, the liturgy (although I could take or leave the use of incense, as well as the vestments).  Theologically, however, I had too many differences: I could not accept infant baptism, I felt it promoted too great a clergy-laity distinction, most importantly, I objected to its sacerdotalism (the belief that a priesthood is needed to intercede between people and God).

Later I became acquainted with Touchstone magazine (at the 2000 Wheaton Theology Conference, incidentally) in which conservative Christians from the mainline Protestant denominations, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy as well as Evangelicalism write on matters of common concern.  It attempts to be a forum of “mere Christianity,” a phrase borrowed from the book of the same title by C. S. Lewis, the “patron saint” of the magazine.  I also became interested in the writings of Robert Webber, particularly Ancient-Future Faith.

I don’t know how the insights of the ancient-future church movement can fit in with what we are doing at Beaver Baptist Church.  On occasion I like to include reciting the Nicene Creed in order to emphasize our unity with all Christians throughout the ages and the world today.  I have also introduced the practice of spiritual disciplines, which are of course not limited to the ancient-future movement.  We also incorporate a couple of elements from the “church calendar” such as having Maundy Thursday or Good Friday services during Holy Week.  These aspects of traditional worship have been positively received, or at least tolerated at our church.

In general, Southern Baptists are likely to be unreceptive to this kind of traditional Christian worship, although the SBC is large enough to have a diversity in worship styles.  For example, Sojourn Church in Louisville, Kentucky uses elements of ancient worship.  The Baptist Church of the Redeemer in Houston, Texas is also incorporates a liturgical style.

We’re on vacation for two weeks, the first half of which will be in Louisville where we will see much of our family. 

We also got to visit our old church family at Clifton Baptist Church.  It was a refreshing time for us.  We saw–if only far too briefly–many of our old friends.  The service was wonderful, Bruce Ware preached on Psalm 116 on the subject of Thanksgiving.  The music, led by Chip Stam, was beautiful.  It was good for me to see a fresh example of what I hope to see develop at Beaver Baptist Church.

It makes me think of how, on the one hand, it is good to have a vision for the church, ideally directed by Scripture.  On the other hand, I want to be directed by the Holy Spirit, to avoid subtly substituting my idea of what this church should be for God’s intention for this church.

Yet, I mustn’t be afraid to lead.  I could easily fail to move forward because of indecision.  This quote from Thabiti Anyabwile helped me to see this truth:

And we cannot be afraid to lead. There may be 1,000 things we must be sensitive to, but we must resist the paralysis that comes from over-analyzing and tea leaf reading. Leadership is as much an act of faith as prayer. We must trust that God is at work in our leadership of the church, and that He will providentially rule in our prayerful efforts.

The moment I read that quote I saw that was an area in which I am weak.  This past year is one in which I had to learn a lot about leadership–the hard way.