On yesterday’s blog, I talked about misrepresentations. And I appreciated the kind and insightful comments on that post. Some observed that this was a very different way of looking at and responding to misrepresentation.
It’s yet another example of how the Lord’s value system and way of observing things is so different from our own. We are all in “the School of Christ” together, so it’s a privilege to learn from one another.
Here is the first analysis I promised. It was written by Jon Zens, and it’s brilliant.
Amazing, even.
It includes a great deal of awesome teaching also. Note that Jon, being the noble brother that he is, first sent this analysis to Jim privately, asking for his feedback.
Tomorrow I will publish an insightful analysis on the book WHY WE LOVE THE CHURCH by DeYoung/Kluck.
An Open Letter to Jim Belcher on Deep Church by Jon Zens
Dear Jim,
I read through Deep Church once, and then went through it a second time quickly. In light of your burden for unity and mutual understanding, I’m writing this letter to you – before publishing a review. I hope by now you have received the 1986 Searching Together, “Desiring Unity … Finding Division: Lessons from the 19th Century Restoration Movement” that I sent you September 30th.
This piece expresses the ongoing passions of my heart. I really appreciate your emphasis on listening to and caring about what others with differing viewpoints say, and being open to learn from various traditions (p.85).
As I read DC I noticed that we had some common “friends.” You mentioned your stint at Cal State/Northridge. I attended there 1963-1965 as an art major. I became a follower of Christ during my second year there.
I was born in Barstow, and lived in Canoga Park from 1956 – 1967. I had John Frame when he started as a teacher at Westminster-Philadelphia in 1970, and deeply appreciated him. I also had C. John Miller as a professor at WTS, and he had an influence upon me that was more caught than taught.
There are many aspects of DC that I would be drawn to interact with, but I’m just going to focus on the handful that I see as crucial for getting to the root of the matter.
Organic vs. Institutional
Obviously, words are used in various ways by different people with shades of meaning. It seems like you want to maintain some conception of the church as organic, but it ends up in an institutional shell. To me, it looks like you are mixing apples and oranges when you state that the church is “institution” in terms of its activities (electing officers, etc.) and “organism” when church people go out into the world as salt and light (pp.191-192).
The images of the ekklesia are all connected to “life.” Wouldn’t one feel awkward saying, “This bride is an institution”?
As Frank Viola notes, “Each image teaches us that the church is a living organism rather than an institutional organization . . . . The church we read about in the NT was ‘organic.’ By that I mean that it was born from and sustained by spiritual life instead of constructed by human institutions, controlled by human hierarchy, shaped by lifeless rituals, and held together by religious programs” (Reimagining Church, p.32).
Based on the NT description, I would maintain any notion of “the church is an institution” is an oxymoron. The ekklesia is a “new being” of life in the Spirit. To connect “institution” with a beautiful woman is inappropriate.
Why Is 1 Cor.14 Not Practiced?
You assert, “Since the Bible does not give us enough information to construct a worship service, we must fill in the blanks” (p.137). Why do we feel compelled to find a “worship service”? There is no evidence that the early church had “worship services,” as we conceive of them.
The largest insight we have about a Christian gathering appears in 1 Cor.14. We have these glimpses because Paul was correcting a problem. In this passage we see (1) the whole ekklesia gathered; (2) an open meeting where everyone was potentially involved in prophecy; (3) that what was spoken had to be understood by all; (4) multiple expressions from many, “each of you has…”; (5) no mention of a sermon by one person; (6) no pulpit; (7) no leaders. You mention “the people up front” (p.139), but in the 1 Cor.14 meeting there is no “front,” as they met in homes with simplicity as a family.
Indeed, while the NT does not give a lot of information about believers’ gatherings, my question is: Why have our traditions essentially jettisoned what light we do have from 1 Cor.14 and other passages? Why don’t we practice open meetings where we can express Christ together? John H. Yoder astutely observes:
Paul tells his readers that everyone who has something to say, something given by the Holy Spirit to him or her to say, can have the floor . . . . Within this freedom for all to speak, a relative priority should be given to the mode of speech called “prophecy,” because it speaks “to improve, to encourage, and to console.” It is noteworthy that there is no reference to a single moderator, “minister,” or “priest” governing the process, as things tend to proceed in most Christian groups in our time. Paul wishes that everyone might prophecy, perhaps echoing Moses’ words to the same effect in Numbers 11:29 (Body Politics: Five Practices of the Christian Community Before A Watching World, p.61).
I suggest that moving toward deep ekklesia would involve enjoying a body meeting where all the priests can function. We are missing great blessings by retaining “worship services” that focus on and are led by “those up front.” Traditional services have “filled in the blanks” with practices that do not foster and enhance NT perspectives concerning the Body of Christ.
William Barclay (from the very formal Church of Scotland) made this remarkable observation based on his study of 1 Cor.14:
The really notable thing about an early Church service must have been that almost everyone came with a sense that he had both the privilege and obligation of contributing something to it (The Letters to the Corinthians, 1st edition, 1956, p.150).
Again I must ask, is it hermeneutically responsible to disregard the weight of 1 Cor.11-14 and fill in the blanks with practices that fly in the face of what is revealed?
Why Isn’t Our Lord’s Supper A Meal?
“Weekly Communion” is a practice of your church. You call it several times a “sacrament.” To apply this word to the Lord’s Supper, given its origin and meaning, seems inappropriate and misleading (cf., Leonard Verduin, “Sacramentschwarmer,” The Reformers & Their Stepchildren, pp.132-159;Vernard Eller, “The Lord’s Supper Is Not A ‘Sacrament,’” Searching Together, 12:3, 1983, pp.3-6).
Emil Brunner in The Misunderstanding of the Church (1952) did a masterful job of showing how a simple meal in the early church became a “sacrament” controlled by an ecclesiastical institution (pp.60-73).
Properly speaking, New Testament Christianity knows nothing of the word ‘sacrament,’ which belongs essentially to the heathen world of theGraeco-Roman empire and which unfortunately some of the Reformers unthinkingly took over from ecclesiastical tradition. For this word, and still more the overtones which it conveys, is the starting point for those disastrous developments which began soon to transform the community of Jesus into the Church which is first and foremost a sacramental Church (pp.72-73).
New Testament scholarship is united in acknowledging that the early church remembered the Lord in a meal they ate together (Daniel Doriani, “Wasn’t the Lord’s Supper Originally a Feast?” Christianity Today, March 18, 1983).
You note that in your celebration, “Even though people come forward as individuals, it is done as a community – a covenant-family meal” (p.140). How do you have a covenant-meal with no food? Don’t people sit at, not come forward, for a meal? When the Lord commenced the remembrance time, it was in the setting of a full meal, not a snack. Why have we abandoned the blessing of eating together in anticipation of the future supper of the Lamb and his Bride?
Why Is Preaching Central?
It seems that no matter how you slice it – in the traditional, emergent, or your view – the sermon still remains intact and central. I do not see how deep ekklesia can blossom until this tradition is dealt a death-blow.
There is no NT evidence of the “centrality of preaching,” as it came to be practiced in church traditions (cf., David Norrington, To Preach or Not To Preach? The Church’s Urgent Question, Paternoster, 1996, 130pp.; and Anglican Jeremy Thompson, Preaching As Dialogue: Is the Sermon a Sacred Cow? Grove Books, 1996 & 2003, 68pp.). The pulpit-centered architecture of most churches has no roots in the Biblical revelation.
In order for everything to focus on the sermon, the participatory body meeting described in 1 Cor.14 must be eliminated. There are 58 “one-another’s” in the NT, and there is not a whit about the centrality of “the pastor.” Yet the pastor and his sermon is what “church” revolves around in most cases. Why? Why do we push aside that which has some sound basis (1 Cor.14), and elevate that which has no foundation in Scripture? Dr. Henry R. Seftonobserves:
Worship in the house-church had been of an intimate kind in which all present had taken an active part . . . . [This] changed from being ‘a corporate action of the whole church’ into ‘a service said by the clergy to which the laity listened.’ (A Lion Handbook – The History of Christianity, Lion Publishing, 1988, p.151).
The early church was about the saints gathering around Christ in their midst. Jeremy Thompson correctly notes in his chapter, “A Theology of Preaching As Dialogue”:
According to Paul’s understanding, participation in the community centered primarily around fellowship, expressed in word and deed, of the members with God and one another…. This means that the focal point of reference was neither a book nor a rite but a set of relationships, and that God communicated himself to them . . . primarily through . . . one another.
Your unhealthy elevation of the importance and effectiveness of sermons is revealed when you were impressed with the Biblical maturity of the adults in the house church you visited, and attributed this to pulpit oratory – “Clearly, these are folks who have been around the church many years and have heard lots of solid evangelical sermons” (p.169).
Apparently you cannot conceive of people being Biblically literate unless they hear sermons. Are you aware of the many people who have testified that their understanding of Christ in the Scriptures rose exponentially when they were part of open meetings where all participated?
“Clergy/Laity”: The Unchallenged Doctrine
Again, whether traditional, emergent, fundamentalist, liberal, your “third way,” or even heathen religions – they are all infected with what John H. Yoder called, The Universality of the Religious Specialist.
The traditional clergy/laity distinction cannot be found in the NT, but in post-apostolic history it became the linchpin of the ecclesiastical system. Since the visible church assumed the validity of the clergy/laity divide, it goes unchallenged in almost all Christian traditions. Deep ekklesia is unable to flourish unless this mistaken notion is rooted out. John H. Yoder has highlighted this problem:
But in every case he disposes of a unique quality, which he usually possesses for life, which alone qualifies him for his function, and beside which the mass of men are identifiable negatively as “laymen,” i.e., non-bearers of this special quality. Normally one such person is needed per social group . . . . One person per place is enough to do what he needs to do . . . . In Catholicism he renews the miracle of the sacrament; in magisterial Protestantism he proclaims the Word as true preaching . . . . But in every case it is what only he can do right, and it is that function around which that happens which people think of as a “church.” It is, in fact, his presence which is the presence of the church; he is the definition (sociologically) of the church . . . . No one balks at what his services cost (“The Fullness of Christ,” Searching Together, 11:3, 1982, p.4).
You suggest in Deep Church that “ordination” needs to be taken seriously. I suggest that the traditional ideas surrounding “ordination” are unbiblical, and only feed the chasm between clergy and laity (cf. Marjorie Warkentin, Ordination: A Biblical-Historical View, Eerdmans, 1980).
Modified Church
It would seem, Jim, that when the sun goes down at the end of the day, you end up with a view of church that is an upgraded version of the traditional elements of church – a pastor, a sermon, ushers and sacraments.
For me, deep ekklesia is found in a book like Reimagining Church. An overview of the author’s journey is found in Frank Viola’s “Deep Ecclesiology,” From Eternity to Here (pp.291-305). Of course, church is much more than meetings. But in terms of the issues in your book, a vital starting point is to meet around Christ in openness:
Corporate Display. The church is called to gather regularly to display God’s life through the ministry of every believer. How? Not by religious services where a few people perform before a passive audience. But in open-participatory meetings where every member of the believing priesthood functions, ministers, and expresses the living God in an open-participatory atmosphere (1 Cor.14:26; 1 Pet.2:5; Heb.10:24-25; etc.) From Eternity to Here, p.283.
In your endnotes a few concerning items appear. You say, “For Barna and Viola the biblical record is all we need . . . . [they say] all we need is the Bible and the record of the first-century church” (pp.227-228).
What happened to Sola Scriptura?
Don’t we believe that everything post-apostolic must be judged and evaluated by biblical revelation? Didn’t Luther say when he took his stand before Catholic leaders that he was captive to God’s Word? There are five Solas in the Reformation slogan. Aren’t they meant to stand alone with absolutely no additions?
Further, you aver that Viola “rejects the Great Tradition (classical orthodoxy) as nothing but pagan accretions” (p.228). That is a very misleading statement. Frank holds to the first tier of orthodoxy you describe in your book, specifically the three creeds you fully cited on pages 55-58 in Deep Church.
You seem to be sending mixed signals.
You opt for the importance of two tiers (one tier we can all agree on, and a second where all our differences can be discussed) for the advance of unity, and yet in your remarks above you seem to mean much more than the first tier when you say “classical orthodoxy.” Frank accepts the first tier, and documents the assimilation of pagan elements into the visible church as history moved on.
Pagan Christianity never says “all we need is the Bible” the way you portrayed it, and he does not deny “classical orthodoxy” as you defined it. If his books are read carefully, such notions will not be found in them. He certainly does believe that many key post-apostolic developments in the visible church structures (tier two) are at odds with the biblical revelation, and provides ample documentation for this conviction.
Jim, thank you for considering these perspectives. So much more could be said, but these points cover some foundational issues. What are your thoughts?
Jon
Related:
Jon Zens Shreds Another Critique
My Response to Ben Witherington
How do we deal with the scriptures that talk about Bishops, elders, and deacons if the church is purely organic, a family, as you have talked about? What is the purpose of these roles? What do we do with I Timothy 3, Acts 14:23, and Titus 1:5 that talk about the ordination of Bishops and elders and the serving role of deacon? Also Acts 2:46 and 5:42 tell us that they didn’t simply meet house to house but also at the temple.
Darrin: All of these questions are answered in my book “Reimagining Church.” Way too long to answer in a comment, I’m afraid. http://ReimaginingChurch.org
That was, I mean is, beautiful John! How about writing a book length response entitled: “Deep-Sixed Church!”
Here is a repost of the link to my review, since it failed earlier:
Here is another review of Deep Church, which I originally posted to Amazon.com as a book review —
Deep Church but the Deep Ecclesiology chapter needs a rewrite
http://jeffstucker.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!39D1BD34D3525D51!205.entry
Beautiful analysis of Belchers book by Zens. I particularly appreciated the light shed on the Clergy/Laity distinction as universal in the modern western christianity model. That is driving the 2,000 year train if you will. I happen to think it boils down to a basic control issue in all of its 22,000 manifestations of the christian religion. I find it revealing that of 22,000 manifestations, clergy is the stubborn constant, the other particulars may change, but the clergy/laity distinction does not.
In Pauls letter: “To the the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus:” (Eph 1:1.) Notice the letter is to the saints, not the clergy. In the sixth chapter Paul writes: “Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph. 6:11-12) This admonition by Paul is not only about the world system. But Paul is talking about religion as well, including christian religion.
It is all about control.
I vote for the “58 one anothers” by the laity, in the NT.
Joanne commented/asked;
Wasn’t it Ignatius that proclaimed, “DO NOTHING without your bishop”?
Tom
Tom, yes. He died around A.D. 107. Barna and I go through the history in Chapter 5 of PAGAN CHRISTIANITY and delve into the question (from our perspective) on why the one-bishop rule emerged and hardened into the arteries of the church.
I would like to find that 1986 Searching Together article Jon mentioned sending him. I looked for it at Jon’s website, but apparently archives that old are not online. Is it available anywhere? I grew up in the Restorationist fellowship, and still sometimes call myself an “unreconstructed Campbellite” (because my views are closer to old Alex’s than to most today who consider themselves his followers). When I came upon the modern house church movement, I was struck by the similarities between what they were saying and what Campbell and his associates said back then (they never tried to do away with church buildings, but church buildings in the western US–now the Midwest–around 1830 were not as elaborate and expensive as today’s). The second and third generations after Campbell went back to having professional clergy, which Campbell and many others in the first generation had opposed.
Nphawkins: the article is superb. In fact, the periodical is among the best out there. You can email Jon at jzens@searchingtogether.org and ask him how to obtain a copy.
As I was reading this review I asked myself for the ten thousandth time (give or take a few), Why did Iraneaus harden the one-bishop rule?
As this was simmering on the back burner of my mind I read, “…But in every case it is what only he can do right, and it is that function around which that happens which people think of as a “church.” It is, in fact, his presence which is the presence of the church; he is the definition (sociologically) of the church . . . . No one balks at what his services cost,” about ordained clergy.
That is SO it. Even house churches are on the “okay” list these days if they have an ordained pastor.
I used to be skeptical of Frank’s assertion that it’s the clergy/laity divide which really got the insitution part rolling. I rather thought it was Constantine commandeering Christianity for political purposes.
But I’ve changed my mind.
Here’s why. I think Iraneaus and Clement and Ignatius all panicked. They forgot that Jesus is vibrantly and powerfully alive. They no longer saw the Lord as Head of His body, that He was sovereignly able to lead and protect His flock. They thought it all boiled down to them and the rest of the (NON Gnostic) bishops.
And even that far back, 200 A.D., they insisted that ” bishops provided the only safe guide to the interpretation of Scripture” (I got that from Wikipedia for easiness’ sake).
And the reason I get that, now, finally, is because all three of my daughters are now away, two in college and one just graduated. They are not following ALL the teachings of Mother. Like Irenaeus, I would like to send them a bishop to “help” them stay in line. But the Lord gently and often reminds me that He is on it. They are all His, and He is writing He story into their lives in unique ways.
I can hardly blame ordained clergy and insitutional church professionals of every stripe for not liking the organic church trend. Their professions are time-honored (to the tune of seventeen hundred, maybe eighteen hundred years). I wouldn’t like my whole reason for existince to be discounted. I’d wonder what my “call” that I was so sure I heard and understood, was then. To the pastor of thirty, forty years — was that all a Big Lie? Was he really an oppressor when all the time he thought he was shepherding and serving?
I would love to run a halfway house for pastors. My heart aches for them all.
Good observations on a well-intended but flawed book.
THanks for posting this. Love Jon’s gracious, razor sharp comments as always.
So much of this debate cannot be settled by rational dialogue or the ultimate in delicate wordsmithing. Why? These things come to each believer via the sovereign revelation of the Spirit. For many — this simply hasn’t happened yet. We must pray that God will give His liberating truth to those believers still content in dead tradition. The full implementation of the vision of the Ekklesia under the absolute Headship of Christ requires setting aside the clergy/laity lie and casting out useless tradition-laden “orthodoxy”. For too many Christians this “coming out unto Him” is tantamount to an act of heresy and a denial of the faith. And there is no acceptable “middle ground” of mixing error with revelation. We must pray for revelation and the fulfillment of John 17 among the Lord’s people.
Generic: True, but I’ll add that what really helps enormously is when someone actually spends a weekend or a week with a healthy, organic church that’s experiencing authentic community and the presence of the Lord in their midst. I’ve lost count of the number of people who after visiting such a group said, “Now I understand and it’s way beyond what I had expected. I couldn’t have imagined this, even after reading many books about it.”
Of course, not all groups are the same, and many people visit groups that bill themselves as “organic”, but after people they visit, they conclude: “I visited an organic church once and I don’t want to have anything to do with that kind of church” … not realizing that there are thousands of different kinds of church expressions and just because someone uses the word “organic” means nothing.
Too many people have the idea that organic church is a monolith. Consider it as just a label. There are thousands of different kinds of groups that meet outside the institutional church system. There’s about as much variety out there as there is in denominational world.
So each group must be measured as a separate unit, on it’s own accord.
Frank,
Thanks for posting Jon’s critique.
Jon is worth his salt, and more!
T
Frank,
I am curious to know if Mr. Belcher ever responded to Jon’s questions. Is there more to this dialogue or did it end here?
Shane, according to Jon, Jim has never responded to him.
Right on Frank.
I am not implying that you or Jon are suggesting we recreate the 1st-century meetings — it is just that sometimes that temptation or mind-set “to copy them back then” has crept in to many groups seeking “organic church” and the Life of the Spirit is stifled.
I like your example of the Bigleaf Hydrangea in “Reimagining Church” you shared here. I have that book but haven’t read it yet. ;^D
God bless you my brother on your journey into Him!
“For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas
or the world or life or death or the present or the future –
all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
I Cor. 3:21
Appreciated Jon’s comments, Frank..thanks for publishing them.. Most everyone in the group I’m a part of can identify with the mysterious thought Jon shared …” Are you aware of the many people who have testified that their understanding of Christ in the Scriptures rose exponentially when they were part of open meetings where all participated?….” I have unlearned so much in the past couple of years… and all of us are “growing in the knowledge of Christ”.. experientially .. because Christ is experienced in our relationships with people ( if we ever learn to see Him / hear Him ). I can’t for the life of me understand how I could have been so blind for so many years as I lived in this amazingly small “mental box” … Our Lord is not at all like us.. He’s so much bigger and can only be eperienced in His fullness in our relationships. Can’t happen in an institutional environment… I am so looking forward to the day when all ‘religion’ will be gone from all of my relationships… and it will only be the risen Christ who is seen.
Lately, the Lord has been showing me that the truth the ekklesia is to manifest is simply Christ and His love to one another. It’s always been and will always be Jesus in me reaching out to the hand of Jesus in you. And together, “with nothing between ourselves and Christ, and nothing between one another but the love of Christ” we are being the “church” or properly called, the ekklesia, the called out ones. And via this unity in Him, “church” life happens everywhere, anytime, anyway imaginable — via a phone call, a two-person chat on a bus, in a meeting place, in praying for one another, in studying the word together, at a meal with saints, during laughter, tears, coming alongside our brother and sister to help them, the ekklesia are being and doing and living “church”. Now that Jesus has come, died, rose again, and sent His Spirit within and among His people, we need no place, no way, no system, no agreed structure to function as the ekklesia. We are the place, the household of God.
God is doing a new thing in these last days.
I am beginning to think that even those hallowed, 1st-century, New Testament “meetings” were just fine for them, back then, as God spoke in their ancient now. Paul discussed ideas of their way of meeting so as to function as best as possible for them, back then. Of course, Christ is to be Head and the ekklesia is to function as His body. This will never change. But other specific details of their meeting together possibly related more to their day and that culture’s needs. We need to discern these things by the Spirit as to what matters to Him today and what doesn’t anymore. Too rigid an adherence to things done 2,000 years ago is legalism and dead tradition masquerading as godliness. Form has no power. Only the Spirit of Christ uninhibited brings life. A simple test: if it brings death, strife, and chaos — it is the law and the flesh operating. It is not of Christ.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and He will lead us out into the spirit of truth in our worship and coming together as one people where ever we are. God is about the now, and not about any cookie-cutter way of His life functioning among His people. What works for one small group of His ekklesia in Ghana may not be His way for North Carolina, and may not be His way for a gathering in India or for His people in California.
As a local body of believers come together under the Headship of Christ alone, the Spirit will guide them, not ritual, not patterns, not tradition, not even our cherished 1st-century New Testament, ancient culture of house church meetings.
We have to get this.
It must be life, His life that happens, not our agreed upon religious mind-sets so ruined by millennia of dead traditions.
Generic, two thoughts: 1. your first paragraph sounds like “post church” which cannot be sustained by the teachings of Jesus and the apostles (see the article on post church Christianity at http://www.ptmin.org/mediography 2. Jon nor I believe in the idea that “we need to copy the New Testament believers.” The arguments for open meetings are not rooted in imitation of Century One. Hardly. But rather, in the fellowship of Divine life that gives forth the organic expression of church life. Organic church life, open meetings, consensual decision making, face-to-face community, the centrality of Christ, etc. are more ancient than Jerusalem or Bethlehem. They are rooted in the fellowship of the Triune God ( John 1:1-3).
Generic, oh, I forgot to mention — the last three paragraphs of yours were dead on. I agree with you and have always maintained that when authentic church life is born, it will look somewhat different depending on where it is born. (I say this out of experience not theory.) But when someone makes that statement, many tend to think institutional in some places, etc. Not so. The church — because it is an organism — will have the same basic features wherever it is born. Just like humans do (same DNA). However, there will be some cultural changes (just as there are in humans who were born/raised in Africa, China, England, Canada, etc.). Same DNA, but the cultural expression will be different. That’s what I’ve observed anyways. I use the example of the Bigleaf Hydrangea in “Reimagining Church” to illustrate this reality. Depending on where it is planted (climate wise), it will yield different color flowers. But the plant will still have the same basic features. So too with the church.
Great review. I’ve noticed that authors outside the “institution” have gone above and beyond in research and referencing their work, while so many within the institution write books with very little supporting documentation at all. And yet those outside are called “biased”. Hmmm.
I appreciate what Jon is saying. I read and reviewed Deep Church and thought it didn’t go nearly far enough, almost as if Belcher was trying to keep one foot in the extra Biblical traditions of the institutional church. I would ask, since we are concerned (and rightly so) with applying 1 Corinthians 11-14, shouldn’t we be concerned to apply all of what those chapters have to say? In other words, treat the commands and examples equally?
Arthur, open participatory meetings are organic to the Christian … we don’t meet this way out of command or duty, but because it’s instinctive to us. It’s what God’s life does in us. I unfold this thought in great detail in “Reimagining Church.” I’ve also addressed the texts about women in that passage (which I believe have been misinterpreted traditionally) in a few articles on the Mediography. http://www.ptmin.org/mediography – Jon has as well in his work.
There’s nothing inconsistent in this discussion. On the contrary, what Jon has said about this subject is consistent with the entire tenor of the New Testament as well as the teachings of Jesus Christ and the apostles. See “Reimagining Church” for details.
Zen’s questions can be life-changing for those who are ready to grapple with them. I like these:
Why do we feel compelled to find a “worship service”?
Why isn’t our Lord’s Supper a meal?
Why is preaching central?
and especially:
Why don’t we practice open meetings where we can express Christ together?
Such questions have opened amazing doors of fellowship and spiritual growth in me, my family and friends. I am always encouraged to hear them re-clarified through others standing on scripture.
Preaching Jesus Christ is certainly an important NT practice, but it’s so very different from “sermonizing” and the fruit of it is drastically different as well.
As someone who appears in Jim’s book as an example of an “emerging church leader” (which I am not), I agree totally with Jon’s review here.
I think Jim begins with certain assumptions that, as Jon points out, are not the right assumptions about what ecclesia really is according to the New Testament.
Thanks to Jon for writing this and thanks to Frank for sharing it.
It’s funny how God begins to give a revelation like in Deep Church, but then the author takes a “piece” of revelation and fits it into his own mold, his own thinking, his own framework. We must strive to see and interpret revelation ONLY through the mind of God. How can we know the mind of God? We have his Spirit. Sometimes we hear some from the Spirit and ad lib the rest. Hence, we “forest gump” our way through our spiritual journey, rebuild temples God has destroyed, and all in the name of following God’s will.
I haven’t read Belcher’s book, but I have heard some of the arguments that Zens seems to speak against from other professional ministers. I think he makes some really good points, and he just added a couple of titles to my list of books that must be read.