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489 years ago today, Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of a church at Wittenburg, somewhat similar to posting a notice on a university bulletin board today. I think it's safe to say that Luther had no idea that these theses would be the "spark that kindled the explosion" of the Reformation.

"While these theses are far from expressing the full round of Luther's thought, they display certain principles which would have revolutionary import" (A History of the Christian Church). Never underestimate the power of ideas with revolutionary impact given the right conditions.

The ideas spread quickly thanks to a newfangled invention - the printing press. "The 95 Theses were quickly translated into German, printed, and widely copied, making the controversy one of the first in history to be fanned by the printing press. Within two weeks, the theses had spread throughout Germany; within two months throughout Europe. In contrast, the response of the papacy was painstakingly slow." Technologies that spread ideas can be dangerously useful.

The impulse behind the Reformation is captured by the Latin phrase semper reformanda, which means "always reforming."

Dan Edelen asks:

Too many of us Protestants have capped Christianity at the Reformation. We believe that nothing more can come out of Christ's Church than what we got out of the Reformation nearly five hundred years ago. In some ways, we're like the fifty-year-old shoe salesman at K-Mart who once quarterbacked his high-school team to a state championship. Our entirely lives revolve around that day when we threw the winning touchdown. We relive it, revel in it, and on and on. But we let that one event in time become the be all and end all of our existence. It can never get better than that time, nor can we ever let it possibly come close.

But oh what we may be missing because we can't see the opportunities that lie before us today!

Don't get me wrong. I supremely value the Reformation. I also supremely value practicing what we preach and asking if we need a new reformation even better than the old one.

Now what church will let me nail that to their door today?

Looking forward to reading this paper by Scot McKnight (snippet from TSK):

Here's my point: if you narrow the emerging movement to Emergent Village, and especially to the postmodernist impulse therein, you can probably dismiss this movement as a small fissure in the evangelical movement. But, if you are serious enough to contemplate major trends in the Church today, at an international level, and if you define emerging as many of us do - in missional, or ecclesiological terms, rather than epistemological ones - then you will learn quickly enough that there is a giant elephant in the middle of the Church's living room. It is the emerging church movement and it is a definite threat to traditional evangelical ecclesiology.

You can get the paper (requires Acrobat reader) here.

I attended a preaching consultation last week, and one of the questions was what preachers should be trained to be and do. One person came up with an answer that surprised me. He said that preachers really need to learn to be at peace.

I didn't buy it at first, but I could tell others agreed. Some talked about former pastors preaching every week out of anger or hurt. I could relate - I've heard the same, and I've done it. While I never would have though of this as an answer, I think it's exactly right.

In the end, the most powerful sermon comes out of someone who is healthy and at peace. This remark has been a good reminder to me that character is one of the most important things we bring to any task, including preaching.

Apple's Photo Booth can turn even the most handsome man into...well, what you see above. (Believe it or not, the one on the left doesn't have any distortions or effects applied to it.)

Yesterday I argued that pastoring might be harder than other forms of leadership. In a way I believe that, simply because the North American church is in such a mess overall and there are few transformational leaders. Scott pushed back, though, and argued that I'm wrong. "lately i have been re-examining the whole sacred/secular leadership issue and am wondering if in fact leading a church 'may be harder' than leading an organization."

Now, Scott isn't smart enough to tell the difference between a picture of me and Jordon, but in this case he just may be right. Eugene Peterson seems to agree with him:

It is no more difficult to pursue the pastoral vocation than any other. Vocations in homemaking, science, agriculture, education, and business when embraced with biblically informed commitments are likewise demanding and require an equivalent spirituality. What is essential for pastors is that we focus on our particular "pestilence that strikes at noonday"...The idolatry to which pastors are conspicuously liable is not personal but vocational, the idolatry of a religious career that we can take charge of and manage.

So there you have it. When Scott and Eugene Peterson speak with one voice that pretty much settles the issue. Maybe pastoring isn't harder, but it has its own set of temptations like any career. We probably need to lower the pulpit and raise the sense of vocation (a la Brother Lawrence) but maybe pastors will need to learn from non-pastors in order to do this.

I woke up yesterday to an amazingly encouraging e-mail. Later in the morning I had a meeting that was, shall we say, less than complimentary to me. It's the second one in a week, although from polar opposite sides.

Later in the day I got an encouraging card. Also heard a good song (thanks, Mike), and was reminded of other encouragements received lately.

You can't believe half of what you hear, good or bad. I think I'd go crazy if I took what everyone said too seriously. The hard part is that you can't write off what anyone says without thinking about it. Read this in Spiritual Leadership earlier in the week:

"There is nothing else that so kills the efficiency, capability and initiative of a leader as destructive criticism...It tends to hamper and undercut the efficiency of man's thinking process. It chips away at his self-respect and undermines his confidence in his ability to cope with his responsibilities." (quoting R.D. Abella)

Yet also this:

Samuel Brengle, noted for his sense of holiness, felt the heat of caustic criticism. Instead of rushing to defend himself, he replied: "From my heart I thank you for your rebuke. I think I deserved it. Will you, my friend, remember me in prayer?" When another critic attacked his spiritual life, Brengle replied: "I thank you for your criticism of my life. It set me to self-examination and heart-searching and prayer, which always leads me into a deeper sense of my utter dependence on Jesus for holiness of heart, and into sweeter fellowship with Him."

Not the way I usually respond to criticism.

I thought yesterday of what Paul wrote: "I care very little if I am judged by you or by any human court; indeed, I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore judge nothing before the appointed time; wait till the Lord comes" (1 Corinthians 4). You can't believe half the stuff we hear (good or bad) or even the things we tell ourselves. But sometimes you still have to listen.

One of the better leadership books I've read lately is Leading With a Limp by Dan Allender. Dan's thesis is that God doesn't use leaders who are strong and effective. Rather, God uses leaders who are open about their weaknesses and let God use these weaknesses. "God's power is found in brokenness." Allender suggests that leaders face, name, and publicly deal with their failures as a leader, and therefore create an environment of grace. "Prepare now to admit...that you are the organization's chief sinner."

Allender writes:

If you're a leader, you're in for the battle of your life. Nothing comes easily, enemies outnumber allies, and the terrain keeps shifting under your feet. If you've already tried the "easy" solutions, you have found that they come up empty...Nothing is more difficult than leading.

Every organization, if it is made up of people, is dysfunctional. Some organizations are more dysfunctional than others, but they are all on a scale. And every leader is dysfunctional as well. I long for the type of leadership that Allender describes, and I think he's right: the leader has to go first. When the leader self-identifies as a broken person with tendencies toward cowardice, rigidity, narcissism, hiding, or fatalism, and then publicly begins to deal with these dysfunctions, something powerful can happen.

This is why leadership of any organization is hard. Leading the church may be even harder, given the spiritual dynamics and the unhealthy models of church that are so widespread today. My efforts to pretend I am up to the challenge are not usually successful. Thank God that he uses nutcases or else I would be in big trouble. My main challenge is to stay humble enough to be open about my weaknesses, and allow God's strength to flow through them. Not a bad way to lead; not a bad way to live when you think about it.

William Willimon is now blogging.

This goes against my habit of speed reading:

Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them, masticate and digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes of hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be "much, not many." (From Encounter with Spurgeon)

Henri Nouwen wrote:

Often we hear the remark that we have live in the world without being of the world. But it may be more difficult to be in the Church without being of the Church. Being of the Church means being so preoccupied by and involved in the many ecclesial affairs and clerical "ins and outs" that we are no longer focused on Jesus. The Church then blinds us from what we came to see and deafens us to what we came to hear. Still, it is in the Church that Christ dwells, invites us to his table, and speaks to us words of eternal love.

Being in the Church without being of it is a great spiritual challenge.

Thanks to Mike for sending me the quote.

I love this story about Haddon Robinson:

I was a first-year student (a tipoff for anyone who's ever been or had to deal with a seminary student) and was frustrated with my professor of New Testament. Actually, I was indignant with him, feeling that he was not giving my particular doctrinal position a fair play in his presentations to the class...So I did what any grandiose, first-year seminarian would do. I made an appointment with the president of the seminary, Dr. Robinson.

...Dr. Robinson never addressed my complaint or concerns. Instead, he told me a story. This (or something very much like it) is what he said:

"I'm sure you know that Dr. Burdick's wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer's some years ago [Actually, being totally self-absorbed, I had no idea]. Despite his continuing commitment to his ministry here at the seminary, and despite maintaining a full load of teaching, he has refused to put his wife in a nursing home. He gets up in the morning and cares for her: feeding, cleaning, dressing, combing her hair, brushing her teeth. She can do nothing for herself. Nothing. Then he leaves for the seminary, teaches a class, and immediately goes home between classes to care for her again. Then he comes back to teach. The following day, he does it again. He will not allow a nurse or anyone else to do for his wife what he himself can do. He has been doing this for years now."

"I was talking to Donald one day and, knowing the load he was under, said to him, 'How do you do it? How do you so faithfully attend to your ministry and, at the same time, give your wife the love and care and attention she needs?'"

"Donald looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, 'Haddon, it's the greatest privilege I've ever had in my life.'"

As if scripted, his phone rang even as his words were still hanging pregnant in the air. He listened for a few seconds, covered the receiver and, turning to me, said, "We're done here, aren't we?"

We were done. I nodded a stunned reply, rose quietly, and left Dr. Robinson's office. My life had just been changed in ways I was only later to appreciate. What was important in the Christian life, my view of people, my relationship with my wife - it all began to shift at that moment. It continues to change more than 20 years later.

Because of our experiences with the church, many of us might find the phrase, "I believe in the holy catholic church, the communion of saints," the hardest part of the Apostle's Creed. I know we believe it in theory, but it's not so easy to believe in practice.

That's why I find this quote from Nouwen so challenging:

The Church is an object of faith. In the Apostles’ Creed we pray: “I believe in God, the Father… in Jesus Christ, his only Son in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” We must believe in the Church! The Apostles’ Creed does not say that the Church is an organization that helps us to believe in God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. No, we are called to believe in the Church with the same faith we believe in God.

Often it seems harder to believe in the Church than to believe in God. But whenever we separate our belief in God from our belief in the Church, we become unbelievers. God has given us the Church as the place where God becomes God-with-us.

So the real question is not so much whether or not to be part of the church but how to get the church to be the church.

via

Another indication that we live in a post-Christian era. Survey reveals Canadians suspicious of church charities:

One-third of Canadians have either little or no trust in churches when it comes to charitable work, while hospitals' fundraising inspires the most confidence, a new survey reveals.

The survey of Canadians' attitudes towards charities, to be released today, places churches third-last among the types of charities the public trusts. Only charities that focus on arts and international development finished worse, with the latter earning at least some trust of 57 per cent of those polled.

A prayer from Nouwen's book A Cry for Mercy:

Why do I keep relating to you as one of my many relationships, instead of my only relationship, in which all other ones are grounded? Why do I keep looking for popularity, respect from others, success, acclaim, and sensual pleasures? Why, Lord, is it so hard for me to make you the only one? Why do I keep hesitating to surrender myself totally to you?

Help me, O Lord, to let my old self die, to let die the thousand big and small ways in which I am building up my false self and trying to cling to my false desires. Let me be reborn in you and see through you the world in the right way, so that all my actions, words, and thoughts can become a hymn of praise to you. I need your loving grace to travel on this hard road that leads to the death of my old self and to a new life in and for you. I know and trust that this is the road to freedom. Lord, dispel my distrust and help me become a trusting friend. Amen.

Mark D. Roberts on what the church is supposed to be:

The Christian ekklesia was meant to be an alternative society, a thumbnail sketch of the kingdom of God.

So, for example, in the ekklesia of God, Jews and Gentiles, so often separated in Roman society, shared life together as brothers and sisters. Slaves could also be full participants in the Christian gatherings, enjoying equality in Christ with non-slaves, even with their masters. Women could actively participate in the gatherings just as long as they didn't engage in the scandalous behavior of the pagan cults. The theological truth that in Christ "there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female" was lived out in the Christian assemblies (Galatians 3:28). They were, indeed, a kind of alternative society, one that implicitly rejected the domineering, separatistic, and elitist values of the Roman world.

Could it be said that the church in America today is also an alternative society? Perhaps, in some places and at some times, but I fear these are the exceptions to the rule. The church in our culture tends to play a very different role than what was once envisioned by Paul and the earliest Christians. On the one hand, we often reflect the fallen values of our society rather than the holy values of God's kingdom. For example, put a church in the middle of a materialistic culture and, odds are, the church will be materialistic too...

I've been thinking recently about church leavers. A few years ago, I came to understand why some have left the church. As Reggie McNeal says, some leave not to abandon their faith, but in order to preserve it. I get that now.

So I have a sympathy for those who have chosen to leave the church not out over petty issues, but because the church looks so little like the church of Jesus Christ. I think I understand these church leavers because Jesus threatened to leave some churches too (Revelation 2-3).

So I do have some sympathy for those who left the church - but I have concerns too. I'm concerned about individualism, which assumes we can go at it alone. I'm concerned that we define church so poorly - a building or church service isn't a church; some congregations may think they're churches but they're really nothing more than slick shows and an audience. On the other hand, completely liquid churches (occasional, irregular meetings with no commitment; randomly bumping into each other at Starbucks) isn't church either. (More on what a church is later.)

My main concern is from reading books like Resident Aliens, and listening to people like Jim Grier, and, of course, the Bible. What we really need are not isolated Christians, but an alternate communities that exemplify the Kingdom and the Kingdom's values - communities of radical love and forgiveness. I know it sounds naive, but if someone asks what the Kingdom of God is like, we should be able to point to a group of people and say, "There. They're not perfect, but that is a little of what the Kingdom is like."

So I agree with what Mike Frost says in Exiles:

Exiles will not sit in churches passively and put up with the phoniness, but neither will they simplistically take their bat and ball and go home. Too many people, alienated and angered by the contemporary church, have just left, contributing to the decline of the Western church. Exiles might leave (or be thrust out), but if they do so, it will be to forge the way, to fashion communities of honesty, openness, hospitality, and genuine love...

Exiles, sick of mainstream churches but tired of going it alone, have to embrace the challenge to fashion collectives of exiles and lead them into mission....Whatever you do, be prepared to lead others into a deeper communion with each other and with God. Before you know it, you might have fifteen people, and not long after that you might end up with more than a bunch of people. You might have a collective of exiles bound together by a common cause. Dare I say it? You might even have incidentally planted a church.

So I have sympathy for church leavers - but if you can't find a true church around you, that is a community of radical love and forgiveness and a reflection of Kingdom values, maybe your calling is to start one.

P.S. Just noticed that this is my 2,000th post. Just went back and read some of the early comments from five years ago - there are 4,861 comments now. Some of the early commenters are now friends. It's been a blast.

It's been quite a year so far. It's been good - my thesis is mostly done, we're tackling some challenges (long overdue) in ministry, I work with a great team - but it's also been tough. My Dad died, I have lost (for now) a significant friendship, and we've also faced some big challenges at church.

That's why I'm glad to get away overnight with 26 other pastors. We're headed to Muskoka to spend some time talking about ministry in our context. Mike Breen, author of A Passionate Life and The Passionate Church, will also be there. We may also squeeze in a bit of fun.

I am ready for this mini-break.

Common wisdom says that inwardly focused churches need to focus on outreach in order to change. Dallas Willard challenges this wisdom in Renovation of the Heart:

It is, I gently suggest, a serious error to make "outreach" a primary goal of the local congregation, and especially so when those who are already "with us" have not become clear-headed and devoted apprentices of Jesus, and are not, for the most part, solidly progressing along the path. Outreach is one essential task of Christ's people, and among them there will always be those especially gifted for evangelism. But the most successful work of outreach would be the work of inreach that turns people, wherever they are, into lights in the darkened world.

A simple goal for the leaders of a particular group would be to bring all those in attendance to understand clearly what it means to be a disciple of Jesus and to be solidly committed to discipleship in their whole life. That is, when they are asked who they are, the first words out of their mouth would be, "I am an apprentice of Jesus Christ." This goal would have to be approached very gently and lovingly and patiently with existing groups, where the people involved have not understood this to be part of their membership commitment.

Spent the day at Heritage Seminary yesterday listening to James Grier talk about "Preaching in a Postmodern Culture". This is a subject that could go horribly wrong if it fell into the wrong hands. Turns out that I didn't need to worry. Grier did an outstanding job and got me pumped (again) about theology when it's done right.

My only complaint was that there was so much packed in. His material was excellent, but he gave in five minutes what could take an entire semester to unpack. I would love to take a class with this man. The best parts were tangents when he got off on a topic about which he's passionate, of which there were many.

He also gave the best critique of the emerging church that I have heard. In conversation after the seminar, someone told him that they couldn't get their mind around post-modernity and the emerging church. Grier responded by saying that they're trying to get the wrong part of their bodies around the emerging church. It's much more holistic and relational. He then gave a defense for why this isn't a bad approach, much better than our modern view which sees people as component parts (spirit, soul, and body) rather than holistically, which is more Biblical. I have his slides from the section on the emerging church - I don't feel like I can post them but I may share them with you if you ask nicely.

Taken a couple of days ago.

My latest column at Christian Week:

A funny thing happened a few years ago. I always assumed that people who complain about church have a bad attitude. One day, I began to listen to complainers. To be sure, some do have bad attitudes. Others, though, are what I would call redemptively discontent.

The discontent part comes easily. Anyone who has been in church for any time knows that churches can be good, but they can also be terrible: bad sermons, cranky Christians, ungodly pastors, and personality conflicts. Until I listened to the complainers, this was my only category of discontent with the church.

I now realize there is a second category: those who are redemptively discontent. People in this category experience discontent at a deeper level. They have grown weary of Christian subculture, a McDonaldized approach to spirituality, easy answers, formulaic sermons, Christian celebrities, pragmatism, marketing, and programs that promise more than they deliver, to name a few.

From Leadership Blog, a lab session with Rick McKinley at Catalyst:

"As pastors, we are tempted to build the church," he said. "So we send out postcards to targeted Zip codes and we promote church programs." But that misses the point, he argued. "Our job isn't to build the church. We're supposed to BE the church, and build the kingdom." He emphasized that the kingdom is to be experienced NOW, on earth, as Christians exemplify godly living, but he also pointed out, as the recent school shootings demonstrate, that the kingdom is also "not yet." God's kingdom won't be realized in its fullness as long as such sin characterizes our world...

McKinley acknowledges the importance of Christ's atonement for the forgiveness of individuals, but as he emphasized, "The best expression of the church is NOT what happens on Sunday morning. It's what happens in the world during the week. And that's not something you can market."

I've snuck a look at Rick's new book This Beautiful Mess and I'd highly recommend it.

At TallSkinnyKiwi, Redeemer pastor Tim Keller comments on the future of the American church:

I think it's premature to say what the future of the American church will be. Frankly, almost every model you can think of is 'working' here--seeker services/traditional church growth, attractional/hip, classic charismatic, non-attractional Hirsch/Frost, traditional Reformed/puritan, L'Abri cultural engagement, Sojourners-like social justice, --I mean everything. Like you, I have my private guesses about where things will be going, but my biggest problem with (nearly everyone !) is how confident we all are that 'that's not the future.'

More on this soon.

The Desiring God 2006 Conference audio is up and it's free. In the introduction to his message, John Piper speaks directly to those attending the conference who are emerging:

My guess is that there are a lot of emergent types here who are quietly watching, looking, and came to see what we would say. I think what I want to say to you is that my son Carston turned 34 yesterday. That's give or take within a year of Mark Driscoll's age. So I'm aware that I am old enough to be the father of probably half the people in this room, including those of you who aren't seeing it our way.

The way I want you to hear this is that I have known, I have tasted, what it's like to have a son who is not where I wanted him to be, and still be his father, deeply his father. And that's kind of the way I feel about all of you. A lot of you are not where I want you to be, and I can still feel a very deep affection for you. So I want that to be the feel of this morning's talk.

Update: He says emergent in his talk; Stephen Shields wonders if he is making a distinction between emerging and emergent? My sense is no, he is not using it to refer to the Emergent organization - but I could be wrong.

Because we need all the help we can get.

If I was part of the Reformed movement, I would be really worried about the latest issue of Christianity Today which proclaims them trendy. I know these guys and believe me, they don't see trendy as a compliment. The article proclaims, "While the Emergent 'conversation' gets a lot of press for its appeal to the young, the new Reformed movement may be a larger and more pervasive phenomenon. It certainly has a much stronger institutional base." They even have their movement's answer to Brian McLaren: John Piper. "Piper, more than anyone else, has contributed to a resurgence of Reformed theology among young people."

I'm thinking of them today because I thought of attending the Desiring God Conference, taking place this weekend. Challies and my pastor friend Paul Martin are there, and I thought about taking Ken Davis with me, but things didn't work out. Too bad. I have almost met David Wells a few times down at Gordon-Conwell, but we could never connect. I would have loved to have been there to hear these guys talk, especially to hear Wells say, "I wish I could be hip, man," and to hear Piper say that he likes some of the emerging hotheads as individuals because he is a hothead too.

Although I consider myself Reformed in theology, no self-respecting Reformed group would have me. But here's why I like them anyway:

One: They see the problems in the church. They did long before the emerging crowd came along and pointed them out.

Two: They see the answer as theological. Reminds me of the emerging figure who said that if we spent the next few years answering the question, "What is the Gospel?" we wouldn't be wasting our time.

Three: When we get together, I always feel sharpened by them, and they always feel a little uncomfortable that we see eye to eye on so many things. Sort of like how they are uncomfortable when they are proclaimed hip by Christianity Today.

I'm looking forward to listening to the MP3s from the conference.

(TSK had some thoughts on this back in February - good to have TSK back from his sabbatical by the way.)