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October 7, 2009 in Church with 50 Comments

Deep Ecclesiology

What follows is the afterword in From Eternity to Here. To my mind, it’s one of the most important parts of the book. So I’m publishing it here. It can also be titled “One Man’s Journey into Rediscovering Jesus.”

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. . . the summing up of all things in Christ. (Ephesians 1:10, NASB)

My friends Andrew Jones and Brian McLaren have written about something they call “deep ecclesiology.” This phrase appears to be derived from Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theory of deep semantics.” Chomsky said that underlying the “surface structures” of the statements we make is a deeper and simpler structure that’s ingrained in the human capacity for language.

Andrew and Brian have said that in a similar way there lies underneath our varying models of church a basic underlying reality that’s manifested in our historical and social settings. This notion has been coined “deep ecclesiology.”

I resonate wholeheartedly with the concept that there is a reality of the church that is higher and deeper than what typically occurs in many modern church structures. To wit, a “deeper” ecclesiology. Continue Reading…

September 29, 2009 in Rethinking with 41 Comments

Kingdom Confusion: Part II

This is a continuation of our series on “Kingdom Confusion” as promised. You can read Part I here.

In this post, I wish to address a somewhat popular cliché that I think misses the mark on what the New Testament (NT) teaches concerning the kingdom of God.

Here’s the cliché:

“Jesus mentioned the church only twice; but he mentioned the kingdom over 100 times. So He really doesn’t care about the church as much as He does the kingdom.”

Have you heard it before? Maybe even passed it on?

Allow me take dead aim at this line of thought. It’s specious reasoning at best.

Separating What God Has Joined

First, let me say at the outset that it saddens me greatly when Christian authors and speakers pit the church against the kingdom and the kingdom against the church. To my mind, this tendency reflects a profound misunderstanding of what the church really is. (I’ve discussed this elsewhere.) Continue Reading…

September 28, 2009 in Spirituality with 0 Comments

Steve Brown Interviews Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

Reformed professor Steve Brown (SteveBrownEtc.com) interviewed Len Sweet and me recently on that which is most neglected yet most needed.

Click here to listen to it

You can also find it on iTunes under the “Christ is ALL” podcast.

Related:

Ed Stetzer Interviews Len Sweet and me

Mike Morrell Interviews Len Sweet and me

Kenny Jahng Interviews Len Sweet and me

My Interview with Christian Books (CBD) on JESUS MANIFESTO

My Interview with The Christian Post on JESUS MANIFESTO

My Interview with Ben Witherington on JESUS MANIFESTO

My Interview with Kelly Deppen on JESUS MANIFESTO

10 Reasons Why Len Sweet and I Wrote JESUS MANIFESTO

Why JESUS MANIFESTO is Not a Recipe Book

The Ultimate Plagiarism

Separating Benefits from the Benefactor

New Songs Inspired by the Book

September 23, 2009 in Writing with 2 Comments

The ReChurch Library

The ReChurch Library is now available

Click here to read the back-story for all the books in the series

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September 22, 2009 in Rethinking with 18 Comments

Kingdom Confusion: Part I

The following interview was done by Chad Crawford over at Homebrewed Christianity. In it, I speak about the kingdom of God a bit. Next week, I’ll be blogging about the kingdom in a more focused way. And I’ll be taking dead aim at the present “kingdom vs. church” fad … where the kingdom is pitted against the church.

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For readers who haven’t listened to our podcast episode with Len Sweet, tell us about how you two decided to write your “Jesus Manifesto” essay.

Back in February, Len and I spoke at George Fox Seminary. While there, we got to spend a number of hours together. Most of our conversation revolved around the Lord Jesus Christ, and we discovered that we were tracking with each other 100%. In short, we believe that Jesus Christ has gotten short-changed in His church today. So much of contemporary theology and religious discussion is related to Him, but it ultimately misses or devalues Him. The entire Bible shows us that God the Father is totally occupied with His Son. The same for the Holy Spirit. And the same for Paul, Peter, and the early Christians. Yet so many contemporary Christians are consumed and occupied with so much that isn’t Christ. We’ve put so many other things (good things, religious things, even “spiritual” things) on the throne and lost Jesus in the temple without noticing. Continue Reading…

September 13, 2009 in Rethinking with 4 Comments

Reframing Discipleship

Ministry Today just published an article entitled “Reframing Discipleship.”

Click here to read it.

Feel free to pass it on if you find it helpful.

September 7, 2009 in Church with 10 Comments

Organic Church Has Become a Clay Word

As I’ve said elsewhere, I’ve been using the term “organic church” since 1993. In my book Reimagining Church, I point out that T. Austin-Sparks is the man who deserves credit for coining this term. Austin-Sparks ministered in the 1920s until his passing in 1971.

When I began using the term “organic church” some 16 years ago, very few people were using it. (The exception would be those who were familiar with the work of T. Austin-Sparks.)

Today, the phrase has become a fad. It’s become a clay word, molded and shaped to mean very different things by many different people.

Consequently, one must now define what they mean by “organic church” when they use the term.

I’ve often said that an organic expression of the church is one in which the members are learning to live by Divine LIFE together. They are learning how to live by the indwelling Christ. And out of that living emerges a particular expression. That expression, because it’s derived from LIFE, is “organic.” When the church is living true to herself . . . as a spiritual organism . . . her expression is organic.

This past Tuesday, I finished another book for my “ReChurch” series. There are presently 5 books in the series: Continue Reading…

August 18, 2009 in Mission with 58 Comments

Why I Love the Church: In Praise of God’s Eternal Purpose

When George Barna and I released Pagan Christianity, some of the early critics of the book (most of whom had never read it) benightedly accused us of not loving the church, but hating her.

Ironically, we addressed this very point all throughout the book, stating that we were writing the book precisely *because* we love the church and no longer want to see her hindered (at best) or sabotaged (at worst) by a human-invented system that has often smothered her personality and robbed her freedom.

Here’s one such place in the book where we make this point loud and clear:

“Why are you so critical of the church? God loves the church. It angers me that you’re so judgmental about it.

This question is a good example of the problem we are trying to expose in this book. Namely, many Christians are confused about what the Bible means when it uses the word “church.” The word “church” refers to God’s people. More specifically, it refers to the gathered community of those who follow Jesus. It does not refer to a system, a denomination, a building, an institution, or a service.

We have written this book because we love the church very much. And we want to see her function in a way that brings glory to God . . . In short, it is because of our love for the church and our desire to see God’s people set free that we have written this book. And it is our hope that God will use it to help change the course of church history.”

(Pagan Christianity, Viola/Barna, Tyndale, 2008, p. 251) Continue Reading…

August 17, 2009 in Humor with 10 Comments

What Happens After Little Boys Read PAGAN CHRISTIANITY

Someone told me that this boy had just finished reading the book. ;-)

Headline: 7 year old didn’t want want to go to church in Utah – STEALS CAR

 

August 12, 2009 in Spirituality with 29 Comments

Christians and Creativity: Awesome Video!

Not sure if it was Christians who put this wedding on … but we (those who house the God of creation and creativity) should be leading in creative expression, instead of being purveyors of boredom and dead ritual.

I love this wedding video (got emotional watching it), sob sob …

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