Staff Blogs

I am sitting in Atlanta airport right now waiting a flight to Newark where I am going to go spend 2 days with my mother before heading back to Atlanta and speak at an event at North Point Church. 

I had an interesting thing happen on the plane which caused the Jimmy Eat World song "The Middle" to get stuck in my head for the past two hours. It still is in my head, although here in the aiprort Bon Jovi's "Dead or Alive" is playing through the sound system and I am mentally trying to keep that out of my head and keep Jimmy Eat World in there instead. I am from New Jersey, yet have not ever quite connected with Bon Jovi. I recently had dinner with Zach, the drummer from Jimmy Eat World when they played in Santa Cruz and Zach is quite a thinker and someone I love chatting with.

I was re-reading my good friend Tony Jones' book The New Christians straight through. I had read through the manuscript but wanted to re-read it now that it is in hardback form. As I wrote in the blurb for the book on the back cover, I think this book is the finest book out there which gives an overview of Emergent Village's values, thinking, history and direction and I highly recommend it for those looking to get a glimpse into all things emergent.

Tony writes about the desire for Emergent to be a "third way" (page 21) or a "middle" of sorts, not being a "left or right" in terms of avoiding fundamentalism or liberalism or what comes with those options of politics and theologies.

I finished re-reading Tony's book and then I pulled out another book I have been wanting to read and it's The Reason For God by Tim Keller. Tim is the pastor of Redeemer Church, a church of 5,000 in New York City. Tim is Reformed and pretty conservative theologically as a strong evangelical.  He has spoken at Mars Hill Seattle with Mark Driscoll and seems to run in those circles, which would be somewhat different theologically from Tony and Emergent. I was sitting in the plane and after just finishing Tony's book, I opened up and began reading Tim's book and in the Introduction on page xix, I start reading the same exact thing as Tony said. Tony said that Emergent is striving to be the "third way" - and now I am reading that Tim and what he is saying here is also striving to be the "third way" (same words used as Tony).

Tim, as someone who is a conservative evangelical and Reformed is claiming that we need a Third Way or "middle" and his book walks through some apologetics about questions about evil in the world, hell, world religions etc. Tim hopes that his book will be a third way of conversation and his answers to these questions are refined to a strong evangelical conservative response as the "third way".

This "third way" topic is interesting and I recently blogged about it before and have been in several conversations about it with people.  But as I have "The Middle" song in my head, I find it interesting to think about who shall end up defining the "third way"? What will define the boundaries that form a middle? If one defines the middle or third way in one way, and another defines the middle in another way - how do we know which third way is the actual third way?   

My plane is boarding right now. I will walk into the plane and be pondering this.

  ** Saturday ---  My friend Kristin Culman let me know that even Deepak Chopra is now thinking of third ways. 

I am a fan of Dan Wallace's New Testament document research and I highly recommend books by Dan and Ed Komoszewki such as Reinventing Jesus and Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ. There is a co-author blog called Parchment and Pen from Dan and Ed and Michael Patton which I regularly read. I am going to be a guest on their podcast next month along with others such as Scot McKnight and Mark Driscoll.

Michael recently had a series of posts on the emerging church where he did he best to draw out some charts about varying viewpoints and included names in the mix. As soon as anyone draws charts and especially if they put names to things, it will stir up some heated conversation - which this certainly did by the amount of comments made. Various people weighed in on why they agree or disagree or felt names were not in the right places or if charts should even be attempted to describe things like this and if charts like this only causes unnecessary division of sorts.

   

 

You can read the original post here which had the above charts on it and the comments about it. It is important to not just look at these charts, but to read his thoughts behind it, and also the comments that people made to whether they agreed or not to it.

He had a follow up couple of posts Part 2 here and  Part 3 here and Part 4 here  (the second set of circles charts was helpful to understand what he was saying here in Part 4) and Part 5 here.

Michael posted about what he means on the chart by "Orthodox Christianity" in this post.   

Scot McKnight weighed in on the charts on his blog here.

It is not easy to try and map something like this out on any chart, as all this is so complex and that is why reading the comments put in by people are important to read in addition to just looking at the charts here. But I found it quite fascinating reading the blog entries and the comments that people wrote about it from various perspectives.   

   

I read the book Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola when it first came out in 2002 or 2003. I think I have read all of Frank Viola's books and appreciate greatly what he writes. I have become email friends with Frank over the past couple of years too. So I do truly appreciate his passion for seeing the church function in a biblical and healthy way. The book Pagan Christianity goes into all the background of why we do what we do in most church worship gatherings. Where did pews come from? Where did the pulpit come from? The way we have sermons, the title of "pastor", the way churches pay their staff, and all kinds of things are explored in this book. An argument is given that these things are "pagan" and not from the Bible, but because we have done them for so long, no one questions them.

Recently, a revised edition of Pagan Christianity was released and George Barna was added as a co-author. I re-read the entire book again. The book was cleaned up a lot, some further notes and comments have been added. I have been in touch with Frank about the book and even asked him some questions about it which I will post in Part 2 of this. (You can go to Frank's web site and order the book here).

I am not going to give a full review of the book, as there are many web sites that have been doing that such as here and here and here and here is a compiled listing of many reviews. If you read these you will see this book does stir up some controversy. Frank has been responding to some of the controversy here on his web site.

Everyone writes coming from a particular culture and background which does influence their opinions and what they write. Both Frank and George are writing from the context of being very strong house church/organic church advocates. This book does argue that almost anything but the house church/organic church model is not healthy or biblical.

If you know me and if you are part of Vintage Faith Church - you would hear pretty constantly that we don't believe the larger Sunday worship gatherings represents what the early church meetings were like. For the first 300 years of the church, the early church did primarily meet in homes in smaller settings and not in buildings with several hundred people and worship bands etc.  But even though the larger worship gatherings are not formatted like the early church meetings, we still have larger meetings (3 currently) and strongly believe that larger worship gatherings have purpose and are used by the Spirit in peoples lives and in someone's spiritual formation and in the rhythm and flow of someone's week in part of a church community.

However, you would also hear us constantly promote mid-week Community Groups as where true community can develop and relationships deepen in ways that they can't in larger meetings.  We try to communicate that we see these more than "small groups" which usually just last a short time - but we try to structure Community Groups to function in ways that empower leaders to shepherd, study Scripture, make decisions for their groups etc.  So I believe that the house church or Community Group (or some sort of regular smaller meeting) format is very, very important. I can't imagine being a church without them and other mid-week meetings such as what we have for Soul Kitchen (for women of our church) etc. We also have taught in our church about the title "pastor" and how it was not originally a title as we use it today, but it was a spritual gift (shepherding) and that many people have pastoral/shepehrding gifts to be used in the church. We communicate that much "pastoring" happens in Community Groups and that the leaders of Community Groups and other smaller groups truly do biblically "pastor" people.

So looking into all the origins of what we do in churches and titles that Frank and George raise in Pagan Christianity, I love, love, love reading that. None of it surprises me or makes me upset that these origins are being written about. I wish every Christian would know the origins of why we do what what we do in our churches. For the past several years, both in our church and when I speak at conferences I also have been stressing that most of what we do in most church's formal meetings on Sundays is not based from the Bible. How preachers preach, pulpits, suits, robes, the design of the buildings we meet in, pews, the title of "pastor", the order of a worship gathering, bands etc. all were not practiced in the early church. I wish all Christians would know the origins of these things. If we all did, then we wouldn't feel so restricted to "this is what church is supposed to look like" and fight about things, when we realize most of what we do  (and normally fight about) is no where to be found in the Scriptures. I will comment more on this in the next post.

So, reading Pagan Christianity and what it brings out about origins of what we do - is something I love reading. But where I differ from the argument the book makes, is that I don't feel that the independent house church or organic church is the only answer to solving the issues of unhealth in a church. I have been in correspondence with Frank and I had some questions that he answered for me to post in Part 2. I am not against house churches or organic churches - I am against saying that you cannot function as a missional and healthy church unless you reject all forms of contemporary churches and go back to a house church/organic church model. I have heard often stories of people getting understandably disillusioned with the larger church. They then form a house church as a result of their disillusionment.  I posted once about a pattern I have seen (this example was based on a real situation) about the disillusionment with larger churches.   

I am not against house churches or organic churches. But, I do have some questions about those who see the house church as the one true and only biblical approach for what church should be like. And I have many questions about house churches and their sustainability as well as their evangelistic and missional fruit. What I did, was that I asked Frank some of the questions I have and I will post his answers in the next post.

Some of the questions I had for Frank were:

• I fully do understand that you have uncovered a lot of things that established churches do that isn't biblically based but developed through culture or are of "pagan" origin. But things like the printing press for publishing books, the internet, computers, cars for transportation, CD's, MP3's etc. were also not around in the early church. Yet we depend on them for getting to church meetings, we use these formats for teaching, reading, communicating, and writing books like Pagan Christianity. So just because something was not happening or formats used in the early church, I don't see it necessarily as wrong for the church to use as we morph and change the change the format and ways we go about things as culture changes and time passes. However- this is provided we are watching for how the Spirit is changing people and disciples are being made and evangelism is happening as a result of whatever forms and structures we use - whether in a large church of 1,000 or with 10 people in a house church. I say this as a hyperbole and hyper-exaggeration to raise a point here, but why then in your house church do you not really go back and really model what the early church was like format wise? Why do you allow things with "pagan" origin to be part of your meetings and use electricity and have running water in the homes your church meets in when they didn't have those in the early church? Why do you use Bibles that are formatted like "pagan" books that are paginated and bound with leather covers and have page numbers and verses and chapters (which weren't in the original)? Why aren't you using scrolls for reading Scripture like they had in the early church? Why are you using Bibles translated into into the "pagan" language of English - instead of in your church only reading the New Testament (from scrolls) written in Greek like in the early church? Why do you use the internet to communicate and share about your writings when that format was not in the early church? Does your church (or family) celebrate Christmas in any form - or do you follow through like Jehovah Witnesses totally ignore the practice of celebrating the birthday of Jesus' birth and the date of December 25 since that date is of "pagan" origin and the early church did not celebrate Christmas in any form whatsoever? (Again, I am not serious about the specifics of these questions. I am trying to have some fun and play out the the logic of saying that forms and practices of a church that aren't in the Bible or practiced in the early church are then not healthy or should not be used in today's church).

• I agree there are many churches who do what you say in terms of the paid staff and pastors and doing all the work and the people of the church then become dependent on pastors and don't exercise their gifts and then grow in healthy ways. But there are also many churches who do have paid pastors and do have buildings etc. - yet do empower and train people to be the "ministers" and shpeherds/pastors - not just in theory but in reality.  Do you feel that a church can have paid pastors and staff and have sermons and large meeting and be healthy if paying attention to the priesthood of all believers and the church intentionally breaks the larger church into smaller meetings? Do you believe that a church can exist of 300 or 3,000 people with paid pastors, sermons, a pulpit (or music stand) and have a missional emphasis and seeing believers living out the priesthood of all believers? Or does it always have to be a small group of 10 or 20 like you personally practice in a house church?

• When I hear stories of how a lot of house churches were formed, a pattern seems to exist. They originally all met each other in a larger church, got dissatisfied with the larger church and left to form a house church.  But then after they leave the larger church, their relational network dries up, because the primary way they originally developed relationships with the other Christians who joined their new house church came from when they met each other in the larger organized church. So as time goes by, most don't grow with new people apart from those who were also formerly part of their former larger church (or another larger church). So those in the house church wouldn't have even met or known each other if it wasn't for the larger organized church, with paid pastors and buildings that they end up criticizing (many do) after they leave - and then they don't really grow because their primary source of people was from the larger church that they left. Any response to this?

• Do house churches really see conversion growth?  Not in theory, but multiplying from new believers?  Would you say that the established organized church with paid pastors, buildings etc. see more or less conversion growth than house churches? Is there any data about conversion growth in house churches and that compares with the larger structured churches? Or to be specific, how about in your own house church? How many were already Christians, how many conversions have you seen? Has your house church multiplied and launched new house churches over the many years you have been part of one as new disciples are made and conversion growth occurs? How many times? (I ask numbers here only to just to try and really grasp tangible understanding of this. I understand numbers aren't reflective of health by any means).

Again, I highly, highly recommend this book to read and actually loved the primary content of the book and the history and origins taught in the book. As you can tell, I disagree with the application and premise of what to do with knowing the origins of things. I also believe that you can't have a church of 500 or 5,000 and be just as healthy and functioning biblically as a house church of 15 people. I also know house churches of 15 people who have leadership power and control issues and all the same weird things that can happen in a church of 1,000. We can be unhealthy in a church of 15 or in a church of 1,500. Yet I also believe we can be in a healthy in a church of 15 or a church of 1,500. I personally prefer and believe in the larger growing church (for reasons I will explain in a future post) provided that there is examination of health and the very things Frank rasies in his book are regularly examined (as should be examined in a house church too). So I have questions I asked Frank and he responded and I will post Frank's answers to these questions in a future blog post.

To me, it is important to know why we do the things we do. That's why I loved reading Pagan Christianity both times I have read it. I love reading origin books. Especially in church leadership, to me a critical thing is to know origins of why we do what we do in our churches. So we can evaluate them to see if they are hindering the mission we are on. Tradition should not hinder the mission and often we do things (like Pagan Christianity shows) which to me, do hinder the mission. So knowing what is biblically based and what is human origin does matter for having the confidence to make change.  More on this with Frank's responses in a future post...... 

Ok…. I have been neglecting you , blog, for quite some time, I know.

I know… Truth is, I’ve needed this space.

But i am ready again and i have a few things I’ve wanted to tell:


christmas goodness
I had a wonderful Christmas. Literally, from Dec 1st, on, was great. A redeemed Christmas season, I like to say, because up until this point, Christmas-time since before I can remember has been bad… real bad.

But this Christmas, I:

• Got my first Christmas tree for my own place….which came with mistletoe…. which my roommate promptly hung in every doorway of our house ;)

• Home-made most of my Christmas presents (scented candles), in the spirit of Advent Conspiracy, which also inspired much of our teaching for december, a rad prayer path (yay render), 2 local service projects, a global support of living water international, a coffeeshop art show and lots of relational bonding throughout the church :)

• Held a good ol’ fashioned Christmas white elephant exchange with our church family to say thanks to all those who serve at VFC

• Shopping in Union Square in SF on the busiest shopping weekend of the year

• Participated in an Advent celebration, made my own wreath (which got hung on my apartment door), ate way too many cookies and sung Christmas carols.

• Celebrated Christmas morning with the Jensen family at Juletta (spelling?) which included waking up at 5am, jumping on the sleeping brothers, singing more Christmas classics (doing so at 6am with lots of sweaters is a Swedish tradition, i guess), drinking lots of caffeine, opening gifts of inspiration and then celebrating the end of the night with three special words from a very special someone.

• Feeling a deep sense of peace… a certain awe at the celebration of Jesus’ birth… a sincere wonder at the true heart of Christmas… an honest appreciation for my life, an appreciation that transcended the circumstances being good and reached toward something eternal.


goodbyes
On a sadder note, my Gramma Marlyn died in November. She was a good woman, a hard woman at times, but loved God in her way and is at peace. All told, I spent 10 days this past fall/winter in Ohio because of her decline and then death, and each day reminded me of how much I appreciate my life in Santa Cruz. I deeply love my extended family, but I also see the brokenness of that life…the routine of not hearing anything at all, of falling back into the pattern of anger, bitterness, pride, just not seeing. Almost a senselessness…. Like nothing is seen, nothing is heard, nothing is felt, beyond the present emotion. Life laps the shore endlessnessly, pointlessly, eroding…. Nothing overtly beautiful to it, at least not that I can see. But there are those moments and those looks that give me hope and I remember that I believe in a God who is capable of far more. I must hope.

e x p a n s i o n
I continue to be challenged by the Theodyssey course I am taking. Every bit of it is at once comfortably familiar (thanks to my years of therapy) and strikingly fresh (new ways to see the new self). We took a retreat in January that just filled me right up and inspired me to the brink, causing me to believe that every single person in the church should take this class. As soon as I articulated this out loud to my fellow retreaters, I realized that this was complete madness. You have to be ready and willing for something like this and it’s not easy to stick with. But worth it, to me, in what I see of it, because it’s changing everything and affirming everything, too. More later on this, I am sure.

this wall
For years, probably 3, I have felt myself striving for something. Direction for my future, a light on a path toward something else, a path or a destination or a place that is somehow obvious and perfect and easy to choose. But thus far, my life, its only this staying. In this stability, though, I have grown real and true. I really think this. I don’t regret not leaving or pursuing beyond what I have, because what I have and have had is just good. Real and true…. Really, honestly, just good.

But just beneath that stable goodness that has allowed so much and taught so much, lurks the next steps. I am being prepared, there is no question…. but for what, I don’t know. And everyone asks/encourages…. You should write. You should travel. You should pursue your masters. And I love that. But the what, the what. What, what… what…. is the what? (a good question and an excellent book). I don’t think I know my what and I feel like time is now beginning to slip away.

I am 26. They say babies aren’t safe past the mid-30’s, that you gotta pop those things out early to be safe. My dad had this conversation with me the other day, especially cause i only got the one ovary now. But, um, Dad, shouldn’t I have a husband first? Shouldn’t we figure that out first? And the dozens of engagements swirling around (slight exaggeration, but not by much) exert that 6-month pressure on me that seems unavoidable in Christian dating world—you’ve been together 6 months, are you getting engaged?! Are you kidding me?! This is the rest of my life!!...Can I have at least a year to figure that decision out? Is that ok with you? But, I digress.

So, I feel this wall. Like I have seen it from far away and known it’s coming. I even sometimes think its right in front of me, like my depth perception is off (it’s right here! I am going to hit it! It’s right in front of me, I can’t find a way through! What will I do?!) …but then I realize I have awhile to go before I hit it. And I feel safe again, knowing it’s impending, but knowing I have time. And I enjoy the present, as we do, giving slightly less consideration than I should for what I wish were a farther future.

But now, the length and height and width are more apparent, and it’s bigger and more beautiful and more terrifying than I had first expected. I was way off on this thing. And now, sitting here in the Gypsy Den in Orange County, having been up since 4:54am, traveled down here, sat through 8 hours of a conference, I am worn and tired, my emotions raw-- 07I feel like I could cry for all I want to know and all I want to say. Prayers have been sparse, I feel like I have said it all before. Revelation has been sporadic, something larger seems like it should come. Decisions have been avoided, I will wait for one that simply can’t be ignored. In this state, I just run my hands along the wall, feeling for the opening, waiting for that space that will let me through.

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UNICEF - Voices of Youth: Explore:

"Game: What would you do?
Scroll down to play the game in Swahili!



Ever wanted to ...
control the future?
try out different relationships and situations?
go back and change your mind?
get the skills you need to take control of your life?
If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, or you just want to play a cool game, you can start now!
This game requires Flash 6 or higher (click here to download).

Play the game in English now!
Play the game in Swahili! Game: What would you do?
Scroll down to play the game in Swahili!



Ever wanted to ...
control the future?
try out different relationships and situations?
go back and change your mind?
get the skills you need to take control of your life?
If you answered 'yes' to any of these questions, or you just want to play a cool game, you can start now!
This game requires Flash 6 or higher (click here to download).

Play the game in English now!
Play the game in Swahili!"

I think everyone would enjoy this movie. It has a bit for everyone...

Go out and see it, if you haven't already.



Persepolishttp://www.sonypictures.com/classics/persepolis/

I found myself helping our church community last night. We held our seasonal ministry fair. This time we set up all of the tables on the stage behind Dan & Josh. They both presented one of the best stirring messages around. Honestly, they both made me cry. Kristin had asked me to take care of the Coffee House Events table, and I kindly agreed to do it. After all that is the ministry that I direct. However, standing next to my table was the global missions table. There wasn’t anyone standing next to it, and there were over half a dozen individuals that were standing next to it, and they all walked away. My heart just broke. Finally one of the people came back and asked if I knew anything about this ministry. I said, I know a bit about it, and that I was on staff at the church and could generally answer any of his questions. He began to tell me his life story and what he’s been up to, and how he’d like to get involved globally on a street grass root level. So we just talked and talked. It was a great conversation. I also introduced him to JoAnn and Jon our RENDER leaders, and thought he would be a good match to help them out too.
After the tables lost their popularity. People went in to hear Jon Sontag in the coffee house. We slowly started to clean up the tables. And JoAnn in all of her beauty started to converse with me. And she simply made a comment
“Look Liz, you’re in your spot again. Right in the middle. That spot was made for you!”
I looked around to see what she was pointing too. And then I laughed. To my right was a table simply marked COFFEE HOUSE EVENTS and to my left was a table with a world map on it and a sign GLOBAL MISSIONS. She was so right. That spot was made for me. I was in the middle of both of my homes. Right in the middle once again.
It was a physical point out to what so many people in my life are pointing out to me. TM, JF, JA, and so many others! And I found myself last night standing between the two most important things to me.