Theological Musings

hil Hawkins has been doing some excellent commenting here on this blog of late. And sometimes comments are just too good to stay buried in the comments section of the blog. While I don’t seek to exalt any one person above another on this blog (save Jesus!), I just had to put this comment in its entirety up here on the front page for all to read.

To my dear brothers who are involved in the institutional church, please don’t read this so much as an “institutional vs. simple” dichotomy. But prayerfully weigh Phil’s words here and see what points of agreement might be had. Of course, dissenting opinions are welcome in the comments following this post, if one feels it necessary.

Without further ado, then, in my “Wish I Had Written This!” category comes this profound comment from (unwitting) guest blogger Phil on the recent “How (Not) to Judge Someone’s Orthodoxy” post:

Looking back at this whole discussion, I come back to this basic question–What is Christianity? Is it
(a) a set of activities in a sacred place on Sunday morning, with a list of tenets to be subscribed to as a condition of participation, coupled with rules for behavior, enforced by the official leadership

or

(b) a way of living, every day, 24/7, in relationship with Jesus Himself, and with others who also are in relationship with Him.

Going through the words of Jesus Himself in the Gospels, I cannot find anything that leads to (a); in fact, he often rebuked the leaders of the (a) system of the day. I grew up in churches, have been in churches all my life, and my conclusion now is that in most situations, the more of (a) you have, the less you have of (b); in fact, (a) tends to replace and eliminate (b)!

How did “Abide in me” come to mean “Be at the church building every time the doors are open”?

If you want to improve your relationship with someone, say your wife, do you go off to an auditorium and sit while someone who claims to know her better than you do lectures for half an hour? Or would the time be better spent going somewhere alone with your wife and conversing with her for half an hour? Which really builds the relationship with her?

I’m afraid most humans are too lazy for their own good. We’d rather have a list of rules to keep than try to walk in the Spirit. We want a doctrinal statement to assent to rather than trying to learn to hear His voice ourselves. The Hebrews started it at Mt. Sinai–they wanted Moses to hear God for them.

And for those who would say “It’s some of each, both (a) and (b)” my question is How can it be both, when (a) eliminates (b)? I think, and I suspect [frequent commenter] ded would agree (based on what he’s written here), that they are two different things, coming from two different sources. If God meant it to be a symbiosis, it would be a stable symbiosis, not constantly drifting in one direction.

To look at it another way: What has been the “fruit” of (a) in this country? Do we have a vibrant church that is transforming its culture? Are non-believers coming to Christ in droves? Are believers “turning the world upside down”?

Or is the picture more like this: “Our bookshelves are full of Christian books and videos. We have churches on every major street, more staff workers than ever before, large Sunday school departments, cell systems, mega- and meta-church seminars. We have Christian bumper stickers, political action groups, huge parachurch ministries–and in the midst of it all, we have lost every major city in North America.” Back in 1999, Wolfgang Simson included that quote from Ted Haggard in his book “Houses that Change the World”.

Maybe we do need to lay aside everything that’s been written since and go back to the New Testament for our original instructions.

Way to go, Phil! And a hearty “amen” to that.

Until next time,

steve

s most of you know, I’m a musician. And my “day job” during the school year is with Appalachian State University’s School of Music. I’m an accompanist there, mostly working with vocal students, but also occasionally with some instrumentalists.

This semester, I had the opportunity to participate in two concerts of chamber music. For those of you unfamiliar with classical music, the term “chamber music” usually refers to groups larger than two and up to about a dozen.

The two performances I was a part of were a piano trio (piano, violin, cello) and a piano quintet (piano, 2 violins, viola, and cello). Chamber music is rather different from most of the work I do at the University because it’s not “accompanying”. In chamber music, every instrument is equally important, and at any given point in time, any one of the instruments could be predominant in terms of playing the melody, etc.

This was the first time that I ever had the experience of working in this type of setting with chamber music, and I found it exhilarating! But it also made me think in terms of metaphor.

In July, 2005, I wrote a post called “Symphony or Cacophony” where I drew the parallel between a symphony orchestra becoming unified under one conductor and the Body of Christ being unified under our Conductor, Jesus Himself. And I believe that metaphor still stands.

But there is another facet of the body of Christ that I saw in my chamber music experiences. Specifically, I want to draw on examples from the quintet performance. (For those interested in these things, we performed Antonin Dvorák’s Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81.)

In a chamber music setting, there is no conductor. Rather, each player is responsible for being unified with the rest of the group. This plays out in various ways.

There are several ways in which the group coordinates with itself. One of these is the method we affectionately refer to as “The Sniff”.

It works like this: If the first violinist is responsible for starting a particular piece, he will make sure everyone is ready, and then he will sniff loud enough for the rest of the ensemble (and, depending on the hall, the audience as well!) to hear. This sharp inhalation functions in precisely the same way as a conductor’s “prep beat”. In other words, this is the one beat prior to the start of the music which instantly communicates when the piece is to begin, and likewise the tempo with which the piece will be played.

I will use “The Sniff” as my first example of how this played out in our performance. In the first movement of the Dvorák, the piano starts by itself and the cello comes in with a gorgeous solo in the third bar. For this reason, there was no need for a sniff from anyone. I merely made sure everyone was ready, especially the cellist, and I began playing.

The same was true of the second movement. However, the third movement started with the four string players minus the piano. In this instance, it was necessary for the first violinist to give “The Sniff”. And the quartet came in based on that cue.

The fourth movement started with all five of us. The difference was, however, that the piano hit the first note, and the four string players had to instantly respond on the second half of that first beat. In this case, because it was the piano that began, it was I who was responsible for “The Sniff”.

I illustrate all of this to demonstrate how I believe leadership can, and should, play out in the body of Christ. There are times when one or another person needs to “take the lead” on something. However, this is done in coordination with the rest of the body (in my metaphor, making sure the others are “ready” to move). And this leadership is sometimes just a gentle lead in the right direction.

Once the violinist or I gave that indication to the rest of the group that we were about to start, we then immediately resumed our position as “one of the gang”. I didn’t maintain “leadership” through the entire fourth movement. In fact, only about eight measures or so into the fourth movement, it was necessary for the first violinist to once again take the lead.

Another form of leadership that happens in chamber music such as this relates to subtle moments of leadership within a phrase of music. There are moments where the tempo is “pushed” or “stretched” in response to the musical ideas. Sometimes this is planned out in rehearsal, but other times, it “just happens” in performance.

One such example was in the second movement. This movement features the viola throughout most of the movement in a slow and passionate melody in the very dark key of f# minor. After a brief introduction by the piano, the viola takes over, and the rest of the quintet pretty much follows the violist’s lead.

There was one particular unrehearsed moment in our performance, however, where I saw not only organic leadership, but a shared leadership between me and the violist. I’ll try to explain it to make my point.

At a particular point in one phrase, I felt the urge to “stretch” a particular beat. Because the violist was technically in the lead at that point, I had to make sure not to step on her toes. I glanced over at her to see what she was going to do. She happened to glance my way at the same time, and so we were able to watch each other and feel the stretch of the beat together. The rest of the quintet followed perfectly.

The moment was very small. And the glance was very short, but just enough for us to incorporate the musical expression in conjunction with each other, and in so doing, lead the rest of the quintet together for that moment.

I call all of this “organic leadership”. The idea that leadership is fluid within the group, and that it sometimes moves from one to another as the need requires. There was not one set leader in the group, and when we were finished, it was a corporate bow by all five of us with none recognized more highly than the rest.

And what happens when that leadership doesn’t quite work? At another point in the second movement, the first violinist accidentally took the lead a measure earlier than he was supposed to. Instantly, the rest of the group figured out what had happened, and adjusted their playing to once again bring the entire quintet into unity. It happened so fast and without any of us actually having to say or do anything other than adjust our playing (skipping a few notes) to “catch up”.

The first violinist was not demoted as a result, nor was he forbidden from taking the lead in the other areas he was supposed to. Instead, the group organically worked to “cover” the fault, and together we continued in unity.

I think these are all ways in which the body of Christ can work together as one body. And I hope that, even for my readers who are not musical, the metaphor has been explained well enough to make the point. Your thoughts in response?

Until next time,

steve

recently got acquainted with Bill Kinnon in the very…ummm…lively discussion about Mormonism here on this blog. One of the things that I admired about Bill in that conversation was his sincere passion for the church of Christ.

I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently, Bill is on a similar journey of exploring life outside the institutional church. I don’t know all of the details, but I did want to highlight a post that Bill wrote yesterday.

The post is entitled “The People formerly known as The Congregation“, and finds itself highlighted here as the first in a new category I’m calling “Wish I Had Written This!”

Here is a paragraph from Bill’s essay, although I definitely encourage you to read the whole thing:

We are The People formerly known as The Congregation. We have not stopped loving the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Nor do we avoid “the assembling of the saints.” We just don’t assemble under your supposed leadership. We meet in coffee shops, around dinner tables, in the parks and on the streets. We connect virtually across space and time - engaged in generative conversations - teaching and being taught.

There are minor details in which I don’t fully agree with everything that Bill has included here, but I think this functions as a strong apologetic for those of us who are seeking expressions of church outside of the conventional model. And I especially appreciate the tone with which Bill addresses our brothers and sisters who are still part of what we have left.

You can discuss it here, or on Bill’s blog.

Until next time,

steve

everal have prodded me to write about my positive experiences with simple church, rather than focus on criticisms of conventional church models. This is entirely fair, and I hope to do some of that here.

To begin with, I must offer a bit of a disclaimer. We have not fully experienced simple church in any kind of long-term, lasting situation yet. We are still very much “in process” and on the journey. Much of what I write about is still in its infancy, and some is even still very much in the outworking of theory.

Having said that, I will share a basic chronology of the journey, and augment with observations and personal testimony along the way.

Some of the seeds of simple church were planted many years ago when I was first involved in various implementations of small groups within a larger structure. Many times, I hear people say that some of the deepest experiences of spiritual growth and fellowship have taken place in small groups. My experience concurs.

Those small group experiences were very varied. Some were extremely structured, and others were much more informal. Perhaps one of the most memorable situations was when I was in college. The group of college kids in my home church began to get a bit frustrated with the Sunday School class that was provided for us. It just seemed like the teacher wasn’t really teaching much of anything that was prompting any kind of spiritual growth to take place.

We decided to start meeting in an unofficial capacity outside of the church structure for additional fellowship and study. We carefully chose a meeting time that would not conflict in any way with the church’s schedule, and we all continued to faithfully attend the Sunday School class on Sunday mornings (as well as the regular church services).

Each Saturday evening (I believe that was when we met), we invited different people to come speak with our group — at the start, it was usually one of the elders of the church. Over time, we invited other speakers from outside the church, and eventually began to spend time in the Word without a “leader”. It was fascinating! We would spend hours together as a group, fellowshipping, worshiping, praying, and studying. It felt like some of the most deep growth I had ever experienced in my life up until that point.

I don’t remember how long that group survived, but eventually, it ended up being viewed as an “unsanctioned” meeting, and we were told by the elders that we could no longer meet without continual elder oversight. Hmmm, maybe that was a foreshadowing of where things would end up going in my experience! We allowed one of the elders to “restructure” the group, and although there were still some times of growth, for the most part, things changed dramatically, and the group disintegrated over time.

At any rate, I never forgot that experience, nor others that were similar (I’m talking about the growth aspect). I spent many more years (probably about 15) involved in various levels of church leadership and laity. I taught, I preached, I “led worship”, I sat and listened, I gave financially, I received financially, I played, I sang…

Fast forward to the year 2003. I’ve written previously some of the details of what led me to reconsider my overall thinking on church organization, so I won’t repeat all of the details here. But suffice it to say that by the summer of 2003, I was seeking something different.

At this point, I had no clue that anybody else had ever had the same thoughts I was having. I tentatively shared them with Christy (to whom I was engaged to be married), fearing that it might scare her off. Instead, I found her to be quite open to what I was talking about, and together we began to search for answers.

I officially resigned my last church position in December, 2003 in preparation for my move to Boone, NC, and to pursue this new concept (new to me). As Christy and I found, however, many before us had already discovered the concept of what we termed at the time “house church”. We had not yet heard the term “simple church”, but what we read and studied both in terms of Scripture and resources from those already “doing it” matched our thoughts.

In February, 2004, we got together with several other families who also seemed to be seeking this type of fellowship, and began our first attempt at a “house church”. For the next eighteen months, we experienced quite a bit of what we imagined it could be like.

Not everything during that time was perfect. In fact, there was actually quite a bit of stuff that wasn’t even close to perfect! But once again, we experienced some of the same things that I had experienced earlier in life.

There were times when our gatherings would last over five hours! And even then, leaving would be reluctant. It was so thrilling to see so many people contribute to the gathering. Whether it was simple musical worship, or Spirit-led times of prayer, or challenging discussions about various texts of scripture, it was so refreshing.

During that time, I became even more convinced that nothing could replace the type of gathering where all are free to contribute. Not based on a schedule or agenda, nor on anyone’s “position” within the group, but simply as the Spirit led.

Eventually, for a variety of reasons, one family after another left. With the exception of us, everyone was still heavily involved in other churches (which was fine with us — we never asked anyone to leave their church), and eventually that pulled them away. Finally, it was back to just us.

In the months following, we made every effort to rest in Jesus and not try to force anything to happen. At times, it seemed lonely. Very lonely. But over time, God brought people into our lives who shared the same passion.

Currently, we are still seeking together what that means. Our gatherings together are not nearly as frequent as we would like. (By “we”, I mean all of us who are seeking this together.) But when we do get together, I still feel that same excitement and delight at watching the body work together in fellowship and growth. And I come away feeling refreshed and eager to get back together again!

It’s kind of funny because we don’t meet all together weekly, and yet when we do meet, it’s usually for four or five hours. It’s like getting together with family — in fact, that’s what it is. And while we don’t have all the answers (or even very many of them) as to what it should look like, or what it will look like in the future, I do feel like we’re on the right path.

In these gatherings, I continually find myself challenged and encouraged. I find that my awareness of the indwelling of Christ is heightened beyond anything I have ever experienced. And my love for Him and for His body deepens.

In addition to the gatherings as a group, there are the personal relationships. Two of my regular readers and commenters here (Raborn and David [ded]) are part of this family. And while I don’t get to spend as much time with David as I would like (not even close!), I do get the blessing of meeting with Raborn on a weekly basis for either breakfast or lunch. Those times are deeply challenging, refreshing, and encouraging to me. And two to three hours can fly by in a heartbeat!

All in all, with the exception of wishing that we could figure out a way to meet more frequently as a gathering of believers, I can’t say that I would necessarily trade any of this for anything else. And I’m learning to see simple church as a lifestyle of relationships, not just a certain type or frequency of meeting. In some ways, because of my interaction with David and Raborn here, this blog is a part of our simple church. And it allows us to connect with other believers in unique ways, too. My times with Raborn are part of simple church. Times when we fellowship together even when only one other couple can make it are part of simple church.

Simple church is a “way of life” for us, and we are constantly seeking more ways to make that a reality. I don’t know where this journey will lead, but I’m loving it!

Until next time,

steve

t’s very rare for me to post twice in one day (and by the time I finished editing and publishing this, it was a couple of minutes after midnight anyway!), but 1 Peter 5:1-3 is something that I have continued to mull over since posting earlier today, and I see several very important things in those verses. Allow me to point some of them out here:

Therefore, I exhort the elders among you,…shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.

1. I wonder if the word “among” is significant. The description of elder here is not one who is removed from the rest of the flock, nor one who is above the rest of the flock, nor one who is coming in from the outside, but “among” us.
2. Peter exhorts elders plural. He did not say, “I exhort the elder among you” or “I exhort the senior elder” or…you get the picture.
3. “not under compulsion” could possibly play into discussions about whether or not pastors should, as a general rule, be salaried employees of a corporation called a church. Why do I say this? Because…
4. Peter says this should be “voluntarily…and not for sordid gain”. Now, I realize that one can draw a salary without doing it “for sordid gain”, but I think it’s interesting that Peter seems to be focused quite a bit on the monetary aspect (or lack thereof) of “eldering”.
5. Note, too, that he equates the “voluntarily” part (if I’m reading this right) with “the will of God”. Could he be thinking back to Jesus’ instructions about not leading like the Gentiles did, by “lording it over” people? He was there when Jesus said it, ya know
6. “proving to be examples to the flock” sounds an awful lot like “living it out” in front of them. This is a whole lot more about how a man lives, than what he teaches or preaches.

Now, most churches I know of and have been in are very good at having “volunteer” elders (well, apart from the “hey, Bob, we need to fill an elder slot for the next year. I know you’d allow us to nominate you, right?”), but does our “one man up top” structure encourage people to look at the lives of the elders? Or does it encourage them to look at the pastor alone for their leadership? And how much are they able to learn from the pastor’s life vs. how much they attempt to learn from his teaching/preaching?

Until next time,

steve