The surfing parable

I think that is a great parable. I think surfing itself is a great parable, in general, ...

Laird Hamilton is one of the best there ever was at surfing (some may know him as Gabrielle Reese's husband, despite that). The wave he rode in that was captured in that clip (from the movie Riding Giants) was a type believed to be unrideable. Note, he didn't plan to ride such a wave that day. He didn't plan on how he would ride such a wave eventually. He was prepared, but he didn't plan.

I've never surfed, but I think surfing is such a parable to being what we need to be. I've seen enough documentaries on surfing and other surfing movies to know that the philosophy of the successful surfer is to prepare, 'cause you can't plan enough. The church makes plans, when it needs to make preparations. We can't plan for every possibility, but with God we can prepare for any possibility.

Some hold back from redemptive community because the inexperience with such concepts they feel they can plan well enough. We need not plan, just prepare to ride the waves to come.

Family???

I've been cruising through churches, looking for a temporary home for some level of fellowship while I also look at building redemptive community, something that anyone I've come across who's attempted it says is very hard and it takes a fight to achieve.

The one I went to this morning on a trial basis would have been funny if it weren't sad.

They sang for 45 minutes (!) before the sermon, which was mercifully short. It was about fellowship. The guy's talking about the need for it, and that we all desire family. That we are family. When he talked of this church as being a family, I almost fell out of my chair. At the same time, it was like a revelation.

You see, we just spent 45 minutes staring at the back of the heads of people in front of us. Then these envelopes were passed out as he made announcements, and then buckets went around for collecting the envelopes -- the offering. And then we listen to him speak, a monologue, for a few minutes, otherwise staring at the back of heads of those in front of us.

Does that sound like a typical family Sunday get together to you? While I grew up far from extended family, the exception was until I was about five. Until I was about five or six, my maternal grandparents and three of their adult kids lived nearby. So pretty much every Sunday at lunch we went to the grandparents house with the eight adults (all kids married) and by the time I was five there were six of us grandkids. Sometimes the bachelor uncle from Baton Rouge drove up for the weekend and joined us. Even though one of my uncles was a preacher, we never sat in the position of staring at each other heads, doing something besides talking to and with each other.

Church "family"? Most are not like even disfunctional families I know.

Is business discovering the right model?

Ever notice that the church has been following predominant secular models since about the fourth century? Oh, we find a way to justify it through a selective reading of scripture, but still, would you believe it coincidence?

We see it in recent years as churches go for "visions statements" "missions", values, etc. This was, still is to an extent, a model borrowed from business. Rick Warren perfected it and tailored it for a church with his "Purpose Driven Model".

We see it in churches where the Sr Pastor and "elders" or what ever a particular church calls it operating awfully similar to a CEO and a board of directors. Hmm.

Looking at older churches, we can see denominations founded in earlier centuries follow predominant models of their time. The Roman Catholic church has its Pope, Cardinals, etc, which if you study the Roman government of the time, you see parallels in the way the Romans ran the politics of the time and the way the Roman Catholic church operates now, with a pope instead of a Caesar, etc.

But I wonder if a new business trend is possibly a very biblical model, and this is a great time for the church to copy again.

In the natural world, there is a beautiful sense of design and order, but no apparent "authority". Social architectures have noted this, and are proposing new social orders that some businesses are starting to adopt. As Dee Hock, founder of VISA notes, "Purpose and principle, clearly understood and articulated, and commonly shared, are the genetic code of any healthy organization. To the degree you hold purpose and principles in common among you, you can dispense with command and control. People will know how to behave in accordance with them, and they'll do it in thousands of unimaginable, creative ways. The organization will become a vital, living set of beliefs".

This is a business management theory, but it comes from a careful study of the order of God's universe. God's universe is both out of control and ordered. There is order in chaos and structure without control. Is this the next model for the church to follow? Was it the one it should have been following all along?

Is this a part of the model of redemptive communities?

To me, from what I read of the underground churches of China, India, and those in Muslim countries, this sounds like what is occurring there.

Spiritual mature dissatisfied with church?

Last year, the results of a survey of 7 churches, including Willow Creek Community Church, was done by the Willow Creek Association. The study surprised Willow Creek, but those more sensitive to the "splinter in the mind" would perhaps not be so surprised.

The full report can be found here and its "sublinks": http://revealnow.com/storyPage.asp?pageID=12

Most "surprising":
Increased church activity does not led to spiritual maturity
The more spiritual mature were more dissatisfied with their church experience

I think the first comes from an unspoken misconception that church activity is necessarily spiritual activity, that church-centrality equates to being centered on Christ. The latter is in part due to this too, as the spiritual mature come to know this intuitively and are unhappy about it.

This is a discovery of the Matrix that we call the [traditional] church, IMO. We've replaced disciple making with church planting, though we dare not admit it we've replaced Christ centerness with church centerness. Jesus said I will build my church, and He instructed us to make disciples. We've found a way to take charge of the former and neglected the latter.

What we need to do, whether the result is "redemptive communities" or some other form, is find a way to let go and let Jesus do what he said he would do when it comes to the church. What does that look like?

(what follows is a paraphrasing a part of a chapter from Neil Cole's Organic Church)

From Matthew 16: "and I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build MY church; and the gates of Hades shall not overpower it".

Jesus builds the church -- Jesus builds it. Not an innovative approach, a personality, a vision statement, etc

Jesus owns the church -- Jesus bought the church with his blood.

The church is meant to be growing -- the church Jesus builds should be experience spiritual growth, and seeing new souls is a part of that. Doesn't mean each local church should be growing- most warm-blooded things grow to a point then reproduce - reproduction is a form of growth.

the church that is growing will face opposition -- Jesus warned that we would face opposition. If a church is truly alive and growing (see above), hell is opposing it. A preacher once said "If you wake up in the morning and don't run into the enemy head on, then maybe you're going the wrong direction". To quote a WWII bomber pilot, "If you are taking flak, you are over the target".

The church Jesus builds is unstoppable -- in the Two Towers, Theoden retreats into Helm's Deep, despite Aragorn's admonishment to ride out and meet the enemy head on. The battle turns when Theoden finally does ride out rather than defend the fortress, and the enemy is taken back. Reinforcement also arrives soon afterwards.

Hade's Gates will not stand -- hmm, gates are defensive. You don't see a dog wearing a sign that says "Beware of Gate". You don't have a seven day waiting period to buy a gate. The Kingdom is meant to advance, not sit on its butts in a "worship service". Where are a church's resources tied up?

(end paraphrasing)

Again, we are meant to be about disciple making. That implies a very simple, almost "natural" form of "church", so we can focus on what Jesus told us to be about - discipling the nations (Matthew 28:18-20).

Glamor Shot or True Snapshot?

All my life I have dealt with this same splinter in my mind. From the days of my youth it seemed there was a real question that possessed me after being raised in Church in the South, the Bible Belt. In my youth and early days of dealing with the nagging agony of this splinter, the question--As the church, can we really be what we read on the pages of the Bible (especially the Church we see in Acts 19 concerning the Ephesian church) or is this just a glamor shot? You know, one of those photographs where someone used to go to one of these mall shops and get all 'glamored' up and get their picture made. I once was in a church member's house who had this done...it was a woman. She was telling me about the experience and I looked at the picture. It looked nothing like her and I blurted out, "That's you!"

You see it was her, but it wasn't the real person that the people around her knew her to be. Too often, I am afraid the world looks at the church matrix today in its made up forms and and it is so pale in comparison to the Church as seen in the Bible and the world concludes that all this life is just a 'glamor shot' and not really a force to know and truly live out.

But I think this is beginning to change and many are being called out by God from the church matrix just like Neo in the movie. People are truly wrestling through a great deal of 'holy discontent' that is really a calling from Father God to step into fresh waters related to His activity in birthing the 'real deal' in our modern society. He is taking back his true Church and as a friend of mine use to say long before Barna's book Revolution...it is going to be a revolution and its going to get ugly and bloody before its over with. But in its climax it will be the picture of Jesus and the Kingdom that will be used to bring so many fatherless hearts home where they belong...to the end of that long road home where the Father is waiting on the front porch just waiting to run and meet each son and daughter who take that journey to his house!

The Red Pill

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us, even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you to the truth."
"what truth?"
"That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind.".
So states Morpheus in a famous scene from The Matrix. After opening a small silver box and pulling two pills from it, Morpheus continues.
"This is your last chance. After this, there is no going back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to. You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

and Neo takes the red pill.


But before the pills decision, Neo faced another choice. Kidnapped, Neo is offered the chance to leave, but Trinity asks him to trust. Neo asks why he should. Looking down a street being pounded by rain, Trinity says "Because you have been down there, Neo. You know that road. You know exactly where it ends. And I know that's not where you want to be".

slowly Neo gets back in the car.

Looking down the road of conventional church in America, you are looking down a soggy street. How compelling is it, really? More vision statements, shows called worship, building and capital fund raisers. Is this really what Jesus died for?

You read the New Testament, the account of Acts especially, and wonder why the conventional church pales so in comparison. You hear stories of the church in China, India, and underground in Muslim nations, and wonder at the power. Why not here, where you are?

to adapt what Morpheus says at one point in the movie "Let me tell you why you are here. You are here because you know something. What you know you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. There is something wrong with the church. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind"