Saturday, January 08, 2011
back over here
I'm going to be back over here for the time being until we start another season of discussions at ExLG. I am regularly meeting with a few church planter in video/audio conferencing, and am open to meeting with others if that would be helpful. I'll be posting occasionally here as well.
Saturday, September 25, 2010
I've Moved!
I've moved blog locations and am now focusing time and energy on http://exlg.blogspot.com/ - come join me there and join in on a learning group discussion!!
Friday, September 17, 2010
Pagan Christianity, By Frank Viola and George Barna
(review by Dan Smith)
Introduction
Introduction
Why do we do the things we do in church? Are our practices based on sound scriptural doctrine or are they a mixture of traditions gleaned from culture through the years and solidified by tradition? What if church as we know it today has little or no resemblance to the church Jesus founded in the first century. This controversial "what if" is the basis of Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.
Chapter One
Have We Really Been Doing It By the Book?
Almost everything we do in modern churches has no basis in the Bible. Although we give lip service to being biblical churches there are many questions we have never thought to ask. This book is
not intended to be an excuse for the rebellious to wreak havoc on the church but is intended to be a terrifying invitation for those who love the church to examine our practices and beliefs.
not intended to be an excuse for the rebellious to wreak havoc on the church but is intended to be a terrifying invitation for those who love the church to examine our practices and beliefs.
Chapter Two
The Church Building: Inheriting the Edifice Complex
Ancient Judaism centered on three elements: temple, priests, and sacrifices. Pagan religions also focused on these three things. Only Christianity did away with all these things when Christ founded the church. In the fourth century under the influence of Constantine all three Jewish/Pagan elements were added back into christian practice. This created a major non-scriptural influence on the church that remains to this day. Most people do not differentiate between the church and the building. Steeple, pulpit, pew, and balcony are all extra-biblical additions to the church that have minimized relationship and increased passivity in God's people. All while dramatically increasing overhead to the cost of doing church.
Chapter Three
The Order of Worship: Sunday Mornings Set in Concrete
From orthodox high churches to evangelical low churches to cutting edge "contemporary" churches we find virtually the same proscribed liturgy.
From orthodox high churches to evangelical low churches to cutting edge "contemporary" churches we find virtually the same proscribed liturgy.
This consists of: greeting, prayer or scripture reading, song service, announcements, offering, sermon,communion (or prayer ministry) and the benediction. This order of worship, set largely in the fourth century by the Roman catholic church gradually evolved throughout the years to what we experience today. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, the Puritans, the Methodists, Moody, and the Pentecostals all made contributions but left the medieval structure essentially unchanged. This order of worship bears little resemblance to the pattern set by Christ and the early church. This order of worship 1) Represses mutual participation 2) Strangles the headship of Christ 3) is shamefully boring, and 4) Actually hinders spiritual growth.
Chapter Four
The Sermon: Protestantisms Most Sacred Cow
The sermon is the most sacrosanct of protestant practices. The sermon actually detracts from the very purpose for which Christ designed the church gathering. Unlike sermons delivered in the Bible, sermons today are: a regular occurrence delivered by the same person to a passive audience in a cultivated form of speech. The protestant sermon comes more from Greek exposition than scriptural example. This harms the church by 1) making the preacher the prime performer in the church service 2) stalemating spiritual growth 3) preserving the unbiblical clergy mentality. 4)de-skilling rather than equipping the saints 5) and is often impractical.
Chapter Five
The Pastor: Obstacle to Every-Member Functioning
The pastor is the fundamental figure of the protestant church. Without a pastor most protestant churches would panic. Unfortunately there is not a single verse in the New testament that supports the existence of the modern day pastor. The modern idea of a pastor came as a replacement for the Roman Catholic priest. The priest emerged from the Roman-Greco idea of hierarchy and was adopted by Constantine in the fourth century. The pastor/clergy distinction has done immeasurable damage to both the church and to pastors themselves.
Chapter Six
Sunday Morning Costumes: Covering Up the Problem
"Beware of those who like to walk around in long robes." Jesus Christ, Luke 20:46. Dressing up for church is a relatively recent phenomena. While clothes selection for church is not a burning issue it reflects the false division between secular and sacred and perpetuates the practice of hiding our real selves when we go to church. It also goes against the primitive simplicity of the early church.
Chapter Seven
Ministers of Music: Clergy Set to Music
Walk into any church and you will find the music lead by a choir, worship team, or music director. This is in stark contrast to New Testament teaching that each one brings a song. Christian choirs were a concept borrowed from Greek dramas and Roman Customs. Congregational worship was banned in the fourth century but returned to the church with the protestant reformation. To this day worship and praise singing is proscribed by specialists in the church lending again to the passivity of the majority of the saints.
Chapter Eight
Tithing and Clergy Salaries: Sore Spots on the Wallet
Is tithing biblical? Yes. Is it Christian? There is no New Testament justification for the tithe. On the contrary. Tithing was not mentioned in Christian writings until the third century. If a believer wants to tithe out of personal conviction that is fine. It only becomes a problem when it is taught as a biblical command for the church. Nor is the clergy salary supported by New testament teaching. Giving pastors salaries elevates them above the rest of God's people. It also encourages pastors to be man-pleasers.
Chapter Nine
Baptism and the Lord's Supper: Diluting the Sacraments
Typically most baptisms are separated from conversion by a great length of time. In the early church converts were baptized immediately upon believing. In our day the "sinners prayer" has replaced baptism as a sacrament. The Lord's supper began as a celebratory meal that all the saints participated in when they met. Now the Lord's supper is a bite size cracker and a shot of grape juice taken in a somber or glum mood under the supervision of a professional clergyman.
Chapter Ten
Christian Education: Swelling the Cranium
Does formal Christian education qualify a person to do the work of the ministry? This idea is deeply ingrained in the church today.In the first century however Christian leaders were trained in two ways: 1) by living in shared life with other believers 2) under the tutelage of an older seasoned leader. In church history there have been four stages of theological education: episcopal, monastic, scholastic, and seminarian. Seminaries, Bible colleges, Sunday schools, and youth pastors are all post scriptural concepts. Bible knowledge does not equal spiritual life.
Chapter Eleven
Reapproaching the New Testament: The Bible is Not a Jigsaw Puzzle
The reason we Christians have been able to follow Sunday ritual without recognizing that it is unscriptural is because we have approached the New testament in the wrong way. We have forgotten to take the New Testament as a whole and have served it up as a dish of fragmented thoughts. We need to look again at the order of the New Testament, especially the letters of Paul to understand how the church developed. We need to do away with the "clipboard" approach to studying the New Testament.
Chapter Twelve
A Second Glance at the Savior: Jesus, the Revolutionary
A rebel attempts to change the past. A revolutionary attempts to change the future. Why so hard on the church in this book? Because Jesus wants to use his church to bring drastic change to this world. The early Church 1) was intensely Christ centered 2) had no fixed order of worship 3) lived as a face-to-face community 4) was the only religion void of ritual, clergy, and sacred buildings 5) was organic not organizational 6) did not build Bible colleges or seminaries and 7) did not divide itself into denominations. Is this the church we see today?
Conclusion
This book is not for the faint of heart. I became profoundly disturbed by reading this book, not because I disagreed with it but because I saw that it was true. Ultimately it led me out of the professional ministry and the institutional church.
Pagan Christianity
Introduction
Why do we do the things we do in church? Are our practices based on sound scriptural doctrine or are they a mixture of traditions gleaned from culture through the years and solidified by tradition? What if church as we know it today has little or no resemblance to the church Jesus founded in the first century. This controversial "what if" is the basis of Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna.
Chapter One
Have We Really Been Doing It By the Book?
Almost everything we do in modern churches has no basis in the Bible. Although we give lip service to being biblical churches there are many questions we have never thought to ask. This book is not intended to be an excuse for the rebellious to wreak havoc on the church but is intended to be a terrifying invitation for those who love the church to examine our practices and beliefs.
Chapter Two
The Church Building: Inheriting the Edifice Complex
Ancient Judaism centered on three elements: temple, priests, and sacrifices. Pagan religions also focused on these three things. Only Christianity did away with all these things when Christ founded the church. In the fourth century under the influence of Constantine all three Jewish/Pagan elements were added back into christian practice. This created a major non-scriptural influence on the church that remains to this day. Most people do not differentiate between the church and the building. Steeple, pulpit, pew, and balcony are all extra-biblical additions to the church that have minimized relationship and increased passivity in God's people. All while dramatically increasing overhead to the cost of doing church.
Chapter Three
The Order of Worship: Sunday Mornings Set in Concrete
From orthodox high churches to evangelical low churches to cutting edge "contemporary" churches we find virtually the same proscribed liturgy.
From orthodox high churches to evangelical low churches to cutting edge "contemporary" churches we find virtually the same proscribed liturgy.
This consists of: greeting, prayer or scripture reading, song service, announcements, offering, sermon,communion (or prayer ministry) and the benediction. This order of worship, set largely in the fourth century by the Roman catholic church gradually evolved throughout the years to what we experience today. Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, the Puritans, the Methodists, Moody, and the Pentecostals all made contributions but left the medieval structure essentially unchanged. This order of worship bears little resemblance to the pattern set by Christ and the early church. This order of worship 1) Represses mutual participation 2) Strangles the headship of Christ 3) is shamefully boring, and 4) Actually hinders spiritual growth.
Chapter Four
The Sermon: Protestantisms Most Sacred Cow
The sermon is the most sacrosanct of protestant practices. The sermon actually detracts from the very purpose for which Christ designed the church gathering. Unlike sermons delivered in the Bible, sermons today are: a regular occurrence delivered by the same person to a passive audience in a cultivated form of speech. The protestant sermon comes more from Greek exposition than scriptural example. This harms the church by 1) making the preacher the prime performer in the church service 2) stalemating spiritual growth 3) preserving the unbiblical clergy mentality. 4)de-skilling rather than equipping the saints 5) and is often impractical.
Chapter Five
The Pastor: Obstacle to Every-Member Functioning
The pastor is the fundamental figure of the protestant church. Without a pastor most protestant churches would panic. Unfortunately there is not a single verse in the New testament that supports the existence of the modern day pastor. The modern idea of a pastor came as a replacement for the Roman Catholic priest. The priest emerged from the Roman-Greco idea of hierarchy and was adopted by Constantine in the fourth century. The pastor/clergy distinction has done immeasurable damage to both the church and to pastors themselves.
Chapter Six
Sunday Morning Costumes: Covering Up the Problem
"Beware of those who like to walk around in long robes." Jesus Christ, Luke 20:46. Dressing up for church is a relatively recent phenomena. While clothes selection for church is not a burning issue it reflects the false division between secular and sacred and perpetuates the practice of hiding our real selves when we go to church. It also goes against the primitive simplicity of the early church.
Chapter Seven
Ministers of Music: Clergy Set to Music
Walk into any church and you will find the music lead by a choir, worship team, or music director. This is in stark contrast to New Testament teaching that each one brings a song. Christian choirs were a concept borrowed from Greek dramas and Roman Customs. Congregational worship was banned in the fourth century but returned to the church with the protestant reformation. To this day worship and praise singing is proscribed by specialists in the church lending again to the passivity of the majority of the saints.
Chapter Eight
Tithing and Clergy Salaries: Sore Spots on the Wallet
Is tithing biblical? Yes. Is it Christian? There is no New Testament justification for the tithe. On the contrary. Tithing was not mentioned in Christian writings until the third century. If a believer wants to tithe out of personal conviction that is fine. It only becomes a problem when it is taught as a biblical command for the church. Nor is the clergy salary supported by New testament teaching. Giving pastors salaries elevates them above the rest of God's people. It also encourages pastors to be man-pleasers.
Chapter Nine
Baptism and the Lord's Supper: Diluting the Sacraments
Typically most baptisms are separated from conversion by a great length of time. In the early church converts were baptized immediately upon believing. In our day the "sinners prayer" has replaced baptism as a sacrament. The Lord's supper began as a celebratory meal that all the saints participated in when they met. Now the Lord's supper is a bite size cracker and a shot of grape juice taken in a somber or glum mood under the supervision of a professional clergyman.
Chapter Ten
Christian Education: Swelling the Cranium
Does formal Christian education qualify a person to do the work of the ministry? This idea is deeply ingrained in the church today.In the first century however Christian leaders were trained in two ways: 1) by living in shared life with other believers 2) under the tutelage of an older seasoned leader. In church history there have been four stages of theological education: episcopal, monastic, scholastic, and seminarian. Seminaries, Bible colleges, Sunday schools, and youth pastors are all post scriptural concepts. Bible knowledge does not equal spiritual life.
Chapter Eleven
Reapproaching the New Testament: The Bible is Not a Jigsaw Puzzle
The reason we Christians have been able to follow Sunday ritual without recognizing that it is unscriptural is because we have approached the New testament in the wrong way. We have forgotten to take the New Testament as a whole and have served it up as a dish of fragmented thoughts. We need to look again at the order of the New Testament, especially the letters of Paul to understand how the church developed. We need to do away with the "clipboard" approach to studying the New Testament.
Chapter Twelve
A Second Glance at the Savior: Jesus, the Revolutionary
A rebel attempts to change the past. A revolutionary attempts to change the future. Why so hard on the church in this book? Because Jesus wants to use his church to bring drastic change to this world. The early Church 1) was intensely Christ centered 2) had no fixed order of worship 3) lived as a face-to-face community 4) was the only religion void of ritual, clergy, and sacred buildings 5) was organic not organizational 6) did not build Bible colleges or seminaries and 7) did not divide itself into denominations. Is this the church we see today?
Conclusion
This book is not for the faint of heart. I became profoundly disturbed by reading this book, not because I disagreed with it but because I saw that it was true. Ultimately it led me out of the professional ministry and the institutional church.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Are you a Multiplier or Diminisher
by Verne Harnish - The Growth Guy
Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter -- Released this week, Liz Wiseman's and Greg Mckeown's book is the best how-to leadership book I've read since Kouzes' and Posner's classic The Leadership Challenge.
Are You A Multiplier or Diminisher?
The most painful leadership book I've ever read is the new bestseller Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman and Greg Mckeown. It raises a fundamental question about leadership, one that has been waiting to be named, explored, and finally addressed: As a leader, are you a multiplier or a diminisher?
In asking the question, Wiseman and Mckeown have created a new set of terms that will be with us for a very long time affecting millions. Their premise is that you're either a leader who causes everyone around you to feel and actually become smarter (multiplier) or you're one who causes everyone around you to feel and become dumber
(diminisher). It gets to the crux of leadership -- especially now that companies rely on the brains of their employees, not their backs, to stay competitive."
Genius or Genius Maker
The authors ask another important question: "Are you a genius or a genius maker?" Do you need to be the one in the room seen as having all the answers or do you draw out the genius that's within others in solving many of the complex problems facing business today?
Stephen Covey, of Seven Habits fame, makes it clear why genius makers have an edge today when he quotes management icon Peter Drucker in the foreword. Drucker notes that management in the 20th century increased the productivity of manual labor in factories fifty-fold. That was essential at a time when our economy depended more on manufacturing. "The most important contribution management needs to make in the 21st century is similarly to increase the productivity of knowledge work and the knowledge worker," he explains.
Multipliers do this. Wiseman and Mckeown's research found that multipliers get 2.1 times more capability from their workers than diminishers. Factor in the 5% to 10% annual growth bonus they estimate because these same workers are getting smarter and more capable working for a multiplier and you get the kinds of knowledge worker productivity Drucker exclaimed is needed this century.
Impact on Family
These same multiplier effects extend to the family. Wiseman and Mckeown share the results from several studies showing how the environment parents create has a direct impact on a child's IQ.
One specific change my wife and I made, after reading Multipliers, is to avoid praising our children for their intelligence and results. For instance, we've stopped saying, "You're so good at math." The research shows that this actually decreases kids' confidence as they face tougher problems since they don't want to disappoint their parents. In many cases, they will simply avoid math altogether when the going gets tough, rather than risk looking dumb.
Instead, the research suggests it's better to praise children's hard work and effort. You might say "I appreciate the effort you're making with these math problems." This approach increases their ability to reason and to solve more difficult problems. And it creates a belief, and then a reality, that grows their confidence and intelligence.
So it's not that diminishers are necessarily mean-spirited or bad people (whew!) -- its just that they don't fully understand how their words and approaches sap energy and intelligence from their families and associates. And it's a continuum, with most of us falling somewhere in between the extremes.
Starts with Assumptions
The bulk of Wiseman and Mckeown's book focuses on how to become more of a multiplier, offering concrete how-to advice on attitudinal and behavioral changes. It starts with changing your assumptions about others as a leader.
Diminishers basically believe their people "will never figure this out without me" and tend to "use, blame, tell, dictate, and control people," according to the authors. Multipliers, in turn, believe their people "are smart and will figure this out" and tend to "develop, explore, challenge, consult, and support people."
In essence, diminishers micromanage their people; multipliers invest in their people.
5 Disciplines of Multipliers
It's no accident that some managers are multipliers. Wiseman and Mckeown frame five disciplines that help them succeed. Multipliers:
1) Attract talented people and deploy them at their highest point of contribution
2) Create an intense environment that requires people's best thinking and work
3) Define an opportunity that causes people to stretch
4) Drive sound decisions through rigorous debate
5) Give people ownership of results and invest in their success
So multipliers aren't wimps. They demand and receive outstanding results from their people. It's how you go about it that matters. Read the book and start making changes.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Slaves Women and Homosexuals: Explaining the Hermeneutics of Cultural Analysis, by William Webb
(written by Ken Ochieng - put your thinking cap on before reading)
William J. Webb is a professor of New Testament at Heritage Theological Seminary in Cambridge , Ontario
In this book, William J. Webb addresses issues that many would rather leave under the carpet given the nature of sensitivity of the subject. Indeed the issues of homosexuality, and roles of women have been so divisive in the church that any attempt to address them should be lauded.
Slaves, women, and homosexuals is divided into three parts namely: i) toward a hermeneutic of cultural analysis; ii) intra-scriptural criteria; iii) extra-scriptural criteria. Each part is unique in the way it evaluates whether a text is cultural or not.
Webb walks the reader through the complexities of how to determine whether a text in the Bible is cultural or trans-cultural.
Towards this end, Webb, has postulated “redemptive – movement” hermeneutics of eighteen criteria. In each criteria, slaves, women, and homosexuals are the case studies taken through his filtering method. Each criteria is introduced with an analysis of the ‘neutral’, currently undisputed issues like slaves which most agree should be abolished although the Bible doesn’t explicitly advocate for abolition. Issues of women and homosexuals are then analyzed. Every criteria is evaluated and a conclusion made.In the first part of this book, Webb argues that we must apply scriptures not in a static fashion but take into account the original cultural context, the biblical position itself, as well as the ultimate ethic that a redemptive reading of the biblical passages demands today.
Part two of the book has sixteen criteria that are applied in determining how cultural a text is. In summary form, Webb’s criteria in this part are: Preliminary movement (page 73); Seed ideas (page 83); Breakouts (page 91); Purpose/intent statements (page 105); Basis in fall or curse (page 110); Basis in original creation, section 1, patterns (page 123); Basis in original creation, section 2, primogeniture (page 134); Basis in new creation (page 145); Competing options (page 152); Opposition to original culture (page 157); Closely related issues (page 162); Penal code (page 172); Special instructions verses general principles (page 179); Basis in theological analogy (page 185); Contextual comparisons (page 192); Appeal to the old testament (page 201).
Part 3 of the book has the last criteria namely: Programmatic basis between two clusters (page 209); scientific and social- scientific evidence (page 221). This part deals with non- scriptural evidences as determinants of whether the teaching in the scripture is cultural or trans-cultural.
The focus of Webb’s book is redemptive-movement hermeneutics. To support his idea, he has come up with “The X →Y→ Z” Principle (Page 31). X indicates the perspective of the original culture at the time biblical passage was written, Y indicates ‘isolated words’, and Z indicates an ultimate ethic. According to him, “ the X → Y → Z” principle illustrates how numerous aspects of the biblical text were not written to establish a utopian society with complete justice and equity. They were written within a cultural framework with limited moves toward an ultimate ethic (page 31). For this reason, Webb argues that we should live out in our modern world “not the isolated words of the text but the redemptive spirit that the text reflects as read against its original culture" (page 33). Webb’s idea is that we do not stay static with the text (Y) but move towards an ultimate ethic, (Z) (page 33). To further buttress on his “X → Y → Z” principle, Webb has supplied ‘ladder of abstractions’ (page 20). Using this tool, he argues that “pragmatic factors often uncover the rationale for the ‘down ladder’ components of a biblical command where as the ultimate rationale provides the basis for ‘up the ladder’ components of a biblical command.” (page 210).
The criteria are clustered as persuasive, moderately persuasive, and inconclusive. The clustering is determined by how convincing the arguments are, with those that are weak being labelled inconclusive.
After subjecting the issues of slaves, women, and homosexuals through the eighteen criteria, Webb draws the conclusion that slavery is not right, complementary egalitarianism is the ultimate end with regards to issues of women and that the Bible condemns homosexuality.
Slaves, women, and homosexuals has a number of strengths. Webb has treated those with divergent opinions with generosity. Slaves, women, and homosexuals is well laid out, shows signs of research and the thought is coherent making the flow easy for the reader. Webb has included great tools like charts and diagrams which helps the reader in following his concepts. He has also included four appendices, bibliography and indices.
One of the apparent weaknesses of this book is that inspite of its title, the coverage given to slaves and homosexuals is marginal. It is quite apparent that the book is on roles of women in family, church, and society. The issues of slaves and homosexuals are there to disguise or veil Webb’s real agenda of pushing for complementary egalitarianism. Webb’s work also seems to work from a predetermined conclusion and would go for any “seed idea” or “break out” from the scripture, to qualify his fixed outcome. In settling for complimentary egalitarianism on the basis of redemptive movement, Webb ignored other plethora scriptures that would have significantly changed his conclusion. It might be rightly argued that the move was deliberate.
Slaves, women and homosexuals presents a huge challenge to the belief that women should be subject to their husbands. Webb believes that these teachings are for the culture of those days when the teachings were given and that in modern day culture, we should adopt “a better ethic than the one expressed in the isolated words of the text” (page 36). He doesn’t explain how this view fits with the anology that wives should submit to husbands just as the church submits to Christ (Ephesian 5: 23 ).
I wish I was less critical of Webb’s book. Perharps my cultural up bringing as an African have influenced my view of the book! In Africa , we get suspicious of any view that relaxes rules of what is written in scripture—part of the reason why our stand on issues of homosexuality and roles of women are seen by many as rigid. Indeed the issue of what is cultural and what is transcultural is something that scholars have to wrestle with and for this reason, Webb’s criteria is a positive move even though I do not agree with his application.
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