It seems that one of the big issues in debate of recent times is the nature of scripture and whether a narrative approach to theology is an errant one. (For those who find that last sentence hard to understand it means approaching the Bible more as a story than as a list of propositions to obey.)

The obvious danger with narrative theology is that we all read stories differently, so we might arrive at different conclusions…

But, as Brian McClaren says in this interview, its not an ‘either/or’ scenario. Its not a case of no more propositional truth because now we think narratively.

I can understand the concern that is raised, especially in a pluralistic world, but if ‘narrative’ is ‘dangerous’ and may lead to heresy, then why did God give us a book of stories? Couldn’t he have just as easily come up with a model constitution and a set of by-laws?…

I return to that wise old man Roland Allen who said that the greatest impediments to the ‘spontaneous expansion of the gospel’ are overly controlling leadership, an obsession with morality and… yep you guessed it an extreme concern for correct doctrine.

Am I advocating a fairy floss approach to doctrine?

No. I believe doctrine is really important and I am in favour of well thought out propositions. But, when we spend our time dotting i’s and crossing t’s we really don’t have time or motivation to get on with the job of connecting in our worlds

Here’s a great post from the Christianity Today blogsite entitled The Brutal ‘Burbs: how the suburban lifestyle undermines our mission, about the challenges of living in the burbs and genuinely connecting with people.

I think a lot of people see the burbs as the ‘easy’ option for church and mission, but while people may be happy to bring their kids to church for a bit of religion and might like a pleasant Sunday morning with other (apparently) nice people, actually arcing up authentic discipleship is another matter altogether.

Here’s the lead in:

A surge of new books have hit store shelves about the challenges facing followers of Christ who live in the suburbs. Many voices are beginning to say that the lifestyle of the affluent suburbanite, while heralded for 50 years as the fulfillment of the American dream, may actually be detrimental to the Christian life and mission. In this post David Fitch, a pastor and professor in suburban Chicago, and a regular contributor to Out of Ur, addresses the difficulty of practicing the biblical discipline of hospitality in the isolation of the ‘burbs.

Hmmm… how could it be that the ‘American Dream’ or the Oz dream for that matter hasn’t delivered?… It should have worked…

Don’t you love this question?…

I mean how do you answer that?!…

You could go for the generic ‘Um… Good’…

Or

These days I have taken to this as my answer because I am sure it is true for probably every church in the world if they are honest. I draw an imaginary normal curve in the air and say.

“Well… Some stuff is sensational! It just couldn’t be better and we are glad to be part of it. Then again some stuff is terrible! I want to pull up stumps and go sell real estate. But truth is that most stuff just hangs somewhere in between – not greatly inspiring – not horribly depressing. It seems most of life is lived in this zone.”

How my church is going depends on where my focus is on the day you ask me.

I write this because I get sick of hearing people who only focus on the stuff that is exciting and amazing and equally I get tired of listening to people only focus on the struggles.

Personally I am an optimist and tend to see the good before the bad, but in the times I have found myself frustrated it has been because I have wanted to live in a place where everything is wonderful and there is no bad.

The longer I do this stuff the more I am aware that a normal curve is a pretty good picture of life in mission. Sometimes it might get a little skewed up and some times a little skewed down, but never is all good or all bad.

So there you go. Now you know what to expect if you ask me!

All things to all people?

I reckon this would be pushing it for me!

The story is about ‘Naturists Unashamedly Doing Evangelism and Surfing’ (NUDES) – the UK’s first naturist beach mission.

SU – we have so much to learn…

Kent Morgan this is your next project mate!

Ok so my last post on youth min was peppered with plenty of questions and precious few answers.

How very pomo of me…

But, alas I was born in 1964 right on the cusp of the boomer/gen x groupings so I am something of a hybrid by nature. Some days I like to be the questioner, but the boomer in me still likes to have a crack at the answers.

So for what its worth here are my suggestions for future directions in youth ministry if we are to both reach young people and keep them beyond their 18th birthday:

1. Forget about the $$$$ You remember that old saying by Mark Twain “Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth”?

Well, maybe the first step for those in vocational ministry is that we ought to serve like nobody’s paying us…

I don’t think we can even begin to calculate the difference a salary makes to the way we function. Suddenly we start to please people whose opinion we really don’t value becaue they are more powerful than us. They may not have any idea of how to do youth ministry, they may not even like young people, but if we piss them off then they might make our life hell.

Money changes the way we function. There is no question about that at all! My mate Alan Hirsch says ‘the only true revolutionaries are those who have nothing left to lose’. And don’t we need some more revolutionaries in youth ministry, people who will not conform because it is financially sensible?!

Maybe we feel like have too much to lose…

Really?…

Over the years I have seen so many soul-less, ‘sold out’ youth pastors that I can only say this strongly again – don’t let $$$ control you! Because if it does then you will not hear the voice of God leading you to what really matters and you will build a ministry on froth and bubble and other people’s expectations. What’s left to lose when you have sold out to the highest bidder?

In the comments section of my last post, Jules Birt quoted that old adage “Your system is perfectly designed to give you the results you are currently getting.” The system that sees young people file in the front door and disappear out the back door is obviously flawed, but it is still the dominant preference of paying parents and by default those in youth ministry.

Rather than trying to make that system work, why not just give it the toss and start over with a radically different plan built on what we truly believe rather than what others expect?

Check Question: How would your approach to youth ministry change if money didn’t matter and you knew you couldn’t get sacked?

2. Seek Jesus’ approval – not kids, parents or other youth pastors who you wish to impress

Of course… You do this already… Uh huh and so did I… As if…

Once we get past the need to please those who pay us, we move on to those who don’t pay us but whose esteem we place an excessively high value on. We all want kids to love us, parents to see us as stable role models for their children and our peers to look to us in amazement because we are such gifted leaders.

Could this cause us to do things that are more about us and less about Jesus?…

Possibleee I do think!

Maybe we would shy away from advising that teenager to give the year after high school to short term mission because mum and dad wouldn’t think it wise. Maybe we will work late into the night to keep producing funky programs because when we do kids tell us how wonderful we are, (until they get bored because we just can’t come up with any newer funkier ideas). Maybe we feel constant pressure to be in the ‘top 5’ of youth ministries in our own city, so that when we go to pastor’s conferences we will be respected and invited into the ‘pastors lounge’ at big events?

Practically, I imagine this will take different forms in different contexts, but that’s where my next suggestion is critical.

Check Question: Why do I do activity or program XYZ? Could I imagine Jesus doing it, or saying ‘well done’ for my involvement in it?

3. Live, think, breathe, and do youth ministry like a missionary

Almost all local church based youth min in the west (as with much of church) is geared for a Christendom climate where we expect young people to (sooner or later) come to our churches.

Why is that? Why would a pagan young person want to come to a church?

What would it take to re-calibrate youth ministry along missionary principles?

The time to train our young people to live as missionaries is now, not 10 years on at Bible college if they are still around. Part of this missionary identity involves equipping them to live and engage with their own culture rather than coming apart and living in a Christian ghetto.

I would suggest that if we don’t extract them, then they will have a higher survival rate than our current practice of parallel universing them. Perhaps if we expect them to live and behave like disciples and if we help them on that journey they may actually do it.

I have to say that this will only happen in very small groups – where the young people are in genuine community. We will not disciple 100 kids, 50 kids or even 20 kids. We might entertain them, babysit them and even teach them, but discipleship is intense, all of life stuff. I doubt any of us have the time to really disciple people properly and in that I believe we hit the nub of the problem.

I don’t know if I have ever discipled anyone properly. It just takes a heap of time and I have too many other people to pay attention to and too many tasks to get done. If discipleship can happen in a few hours of meetings and occasionally bumping into each other then all is good, but reality is that isn’t going to cut it.

If we are to prepare young people for missionary service then it will require us to live engaged lives and to place the highest priority on ensuring they are appropriately formed and equipped to cut it in the world they live in.

It will involve us not getting upset when they venture into places that are considered dangerous. It will mean taking some heat from parents who would rather their chlidren be kept safe and only hang around other Christians.

It will require a very different mindset to the ‘warehousing’ approach that is so dominant at present.

Check Question: Am I busy trying to get young people into my youth programs or am I busy trying to prepare young people to engage in the world they live in.

4. Encourage questioning and provide forums for those questions to be raised

James Fowler wrote about the various stages of faith. Alan Jamieseon wrote about a churchless faith. Those who live with a ‘churchless faith’ are typically Christians who moved beyond simplistic answers (stages 1-3 of faith) to tough questions and who were greeted with more and more simplistic answers.

If we are to make real disciples of our youth then we will need to do a better job of allowing them to question and of helping them really work thru those questions. Some we will be able to answer and others we won’t. That’s ok. Welcome to real life!

Thinking teens may well hit stage 4 when our youth ministries are still in a very literal phase. There must be space for thinking teens to explore these questions.

Check Question: How do I respond to teens who question me? (Teens who ask about biblical authority, expressions of church etc)

5. Make faith risky and costly

Campolo once said ‘youth was made for heroism not for pleasure’.

Don’t insult young people by offering them funkier programs.

Call them to devotion and to self sacrifice. Short term missions are often a good way of catalysing this. Get young people in risky positions and let them see God at work in their lives and in the lives of those around them.

Collecting the offering is not a risky ministry! Make sure you place youth in settings where only God can come thru. I reckon they are up for it!

Check Question: How often do the young people in my youth ministry enter potentially risky ministry settings and if they don’t often then why not?

6. See Youth Ministry as really long term

5 years is not long term.

I did 2 x 5 year stints of youth ministry – just long enough to get to know people. I am wondering if having a 10-15 year committment might change the shape of things?

Maybe we need to be there in an intentional mode to walk with young people thru the 18-30 stage rather than having a ‘fling’ with them and then going somewhere else.

Check Question: Have I ever considered a 10-20 year committment to my people? If not why not?

Anyway…Six easy steps?

Nope – not at all!

But I seriously believe that if we took these 6 principles seriously then we would begin transform our youth ministries and may see some substantial change.

Just some raw thoughts that might be some parameters to help us chart a healthier way forwards. What do you think? What do you agree with and disagree with?

I have the opportunity to have a stand at the upcoming Sexpo

I like the thought of a space for a Christian presence that affirms the beauty and joy of sex and helps people see the very healthy perspective God has on sex (being the inventor and all that).

I’m still debating

a) whether I have the time and energy to pull it off.

b) whether I am likely to be able to find anyone to come with me.

c) what we would do if we were to take the space.

d) how to choose suitable people – so that we don’t lead people into a minefield. I am aware that exposure to this some of the stuff that will be there can mess some people up.

e) whether its wise to expose myself to stuff that tempts and can destroy. I am as vulnerable as anyone else!

I wonder what Jesus would do? I’m sure he’d have no qualms about being there, but how would he engage with people in ways that express both grace and truth?

If you have some thoughts or ideas then let me have them. I imagine we will need to make a decision soon as it is in May 4-7.

Update: Unfortunately (as the comments reveal) one of the ‘anti-emerging church blogs’ has linked here, written a post about me that suggests I am wide of the mark in my thinking.

Ironically I have been banned from that blog so I can’t offer my side of the issue… I’m not sure why, because all I have done is disagree with them. Perhaps if I had been blatantly rude, offensive or profane I could understand it. Sadly I have just disagreed and disagreeing is considered BAD! The person asks my opinion on this issue but I do not have the right of reply…

And no, I will not link to them!

Al Hirsch tried to make a comment on this post, but it didn’t come thru. He has sent it thru so I’ll set it up here as a separate post. The power of multiplication

Movement Math

February 8th, 2006

All movements have their own special arithmetic. Movements, for example, always prefer multiplication over addition. They just love geometric progressions. So, to build movements everywhere, we need to understand how movement math works.

Let me give you one example: In the chart below, compare the results of evangelism by addition with evangelism by multiplication.

In the left column, you help win and disciple one person to Christ per day for the next sixteen years. In the right column, you win and disciple one person per year but disciple that person so that he or she reproduces himself/herself. This multiplication process then continues for sixteen years. Compare the results of movement math at the year sixteen.

You can see why movements always prefer multiplication.

The reach of any movement is directly proportional to the breadth of its leadership base. Only to the extent that movements grow “self-initiating, reproducing, fully devoted disciples (i.e. multiplying true believers)” can they hope to reach the multitudes.

As Eugene Peterson humorously put it for us in the States,

“Jesus, it must be remembered, restricted nine-tenths of his ministry to twelve Jews because it was the only way to redeem all Americans.”

For our purposes, we need to keep movement math always in mind. Multiplication- the continued expansion and reproduction of disciples who are producing other disciples-is the heart of any Biblical movement.

Movement math tells us that we cannot build movements without the multiplication of leaders, without reproducing disciple- makers. Christian ministries and programs typically depend upon a single leader or group of leaders. Once those leaders pass on, the ministry or program dies.

In a Biblical movement, there is the continued replenishment of leaders to carry its cause forward. We can’t reach the military – expand the kingdom – unless we multiply the laborers.

Commit to movement math. Force yourself to always think multiplication and geometric progressions.

Jesus’ concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with men the multitudes would follow. – Robert Coleman, MasterPlan of Evangelism

Pasted from http ://onmovements.com/

More on the question of mega or mini here download donkey punch dvd .

Its a good article and has some great questions, like ‘is the house church movement a reaction to the megachurch or is it a logical outcome of it?’download dracula free

I was out getting a Bible for a friend who is interested in knowing more about Jesus and I picked up one called Beginning the Journey’ – only $2.95 at Koorong.

In it the author has chosen the 5 books he considers most critical for a person on a spiritual search to interact with.

So here’s the challenge…

Name all 5 (without going to Amazon!)

This year I have responsibility to oversee a Spiritual Formation group for .acom and this morning was our first meeting.

We spent from 7.30am -11.30am in conversation and reflection on what was going on in our lives as we seek to be disciples of Jesus. I always love meeting with people who take their discipleship seriously, so I think these gatherings will be very productive and useful for all of us. When people are motivated its amazing how easy it is generate discussion. We threw some great topics around and really dug into some stuff of life.

One of the themes that emerged over the day as I met with a number of different people was the question of ‘how do we really live under Jesus’ lordship?’ Do we kid ourselves that we are disciples when all we are is religious people?

I am increasingly coming to believe that if we don’t live lives totally oriented around Jesus and his agenda for us then we are pissing our life away on the stuff that doesn’t satisfy (See Isaiah 55). Lots of money, nice cars, big houses etc are all held in high regard not just in middle class dom but also in the church. If Jesus calls us to be his followers first then maybe we will have some of this stuff, but maybe not. Maybe we will be called to let all that stuff go so that we can devote time to what he calls us to.

Do we ever genuinely consider downsizing our house so we can have a smaller mortgage and work less, so we can be free to do what God calls us to? (One family in our Upstream have made this decision recently, much to the consternation of their wider family who don’t hold Jesus like values)

Do we ever consider working the minimum we need to rather than doing full time? I was chatting with Keith Farmer today – an older man now who has made that choice – because he wants to free time up for God stuff. He and his wife live frugally on 3 days a week salary. Why? Because they can…

Can we routinely reject the ad campaigns that call us to buy more stuff and upgrade, even though what we have is perfectly good? I wonder if we should ditch all junk mail before it hits the house. At least that way we will be uninformed about what we don’t have.

I am increasingly disturbed by the extent to which we buy into the economic system of this society and then become slaves to it. I don’t think Jesus intends this for us and I don’t think we pay it enough attention as an issue.

Was the sermon on the mount a nice idea or a way of life?

Do we swim upstream or is actually downstream with an illusion of upstream?

Do we care enough to make a radical re-orientation – to ‘repent’ and live more Jesus like lives.