The fashionable remedy to the Biblical need for community is a program of small groups — and they are fast becoming a standard part of how everyone does church. Which worries me, because if everyone is doing it, it must not be very hard. And because if it was all that effective we’d be seeing churches and denominations radically changed — and we’re not.

Well, in some places it’s happening. But most places, small groups don’t accomplish all that much. They are vastly better than what they replaced — Sunday night worship, typically — but they aren’t all that effective in forming our members to be like Jesus.

In the typical church, small groups very effectively allow people to form friendships and support networks. These are very good things. They are not nearly enough. As a result, I’ve found myself intrigued by a series of posts by Brian Jones, pastor of Christ’s Church of the Valley in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, in which he criticizes the contemporary approach to small groups –

Why Churches Should Euthanize Their Small Groups (and what we should replace them with)
Discipleship Happens Everywhere
Church-Initiated “Small Groups” Begin From A Flawed Starting Point
Small Groups Are Springboards For Discipleship
The Small Group Movement’s Achilles Heel
How Small Groups Succeed
Would Jesus Join A Small Group In Your Church?
Form Follows Function

About every other post is by another minister whom Brian has asked to post disagreeing with Brian. What a great format!

In Form Follows Function, Brian describes his ideal group,

1. The people in that group would learn “how to” become disciples of Jesus the way the first followers of Jesus learned how to become disciples – by watching their leader do, not listening to him/her talk about doing.

2. It wouldn’t meet once a week (or every other week) for 1.5 hours. It would meet as often as possible, sometimes every day (Acts 2:46). You might actually say the people in the group would “follow” their leader around.

3. The leader of the group would actually know Jesus and obey his teachings, because he or she had spent a vast amount of time being shaped by someone who knows and obeys Jesus’ teachings.

4. 80% of “group time” would be spent reaching out to the lost, the poor, and the broken.

5. Discussion, questions and reflection would occur afterwards; it wouldn’t be the main focus of meeting together.

6. Like the first disciples, people in that group would expend vast amounts of personal time memorizing, verbatim, the exact teachings of Jesus (That’s how we ended up with our “gospels” isn’t it?).

7. Inevitably people in the group would start complaining: “This group isn’t deep enough for me. I’m not being fed. It doesn’t meet my needs anymore.” But the leader would have a ready-made answer: “Who told you this was about your needs and your happiness anyway? If you want to be “fed,” turn on Oprah. If you want to change the world, pick up your cross and stop whining.”

8. Every aspect of the group’s energy would be focused outward, on people in need, and not on the group of people itself. Why? Because that’s why the group exists - to unite people around fulfilling Matthew 28:18-20, and in the process teaching them to love God and one another deeply.

Brian concludes his series with a post titled “Alternative to the American Small Group” — which I will now shamelessly copy nearly in full —

1. I’d leave existing small groups in place intact. I wouldn’t change anything about them, but would begin teaching and encouraging the value of discipleship to get the leaders intrigued. As everyone has noted in this discussion, there are good things that happen in them that you wouldn’t want to disturb, at least for now.

2. I would pull together the most dedicated disciples in the church (staff and volunteers) to go out into the community with me for prayer, fasting, feeding the poor, working in prisons, scripture memorization, evangelism, etc.

3. After a while (6 months? 1 year?) I would pick the ones whom the others naturally gravitate towards and ask them to work closely with me for at least another 6 months or more. During that time I would pour myself into them on a regular basis, meeting with them out in the community to continue feeding the poor, evangelizing, praying, debriefing afterwards, following up on scripture memorization, etc. (of course, all of this could and should happen independently of me…I’m just sharing how I would personally approach it).

4. One by one, as I sensed that each one was ready, I would encourage them to begin replicating what I had done with other people outside and inside the church. I would encourage them to invite people to join them in what they were already doing.

5. The key would be that each “discipleship connection” would live or die, or begin and end, “out there” in the wild, not inside some home, in a circle, with people from the church. I would envision that these groups might actually be hard for Christians to break into since most of the people joining these discipleship colloquiums would come from relationships disciples would initiate “out there.”

6. Since most scholars believe that the Gospel of Matthew was fashioned as a discipleship tool, my goal would be to have each person I was pouring myself into memorize the five main teaching blocks of that entire gospel: Matthew 5-7; 10; 13; 18; and 23-25. I would quiz them, talk to them about what they were learning, and help them as they struggled to obey what they memorized. I would begin doing this the first time someone showed up to “follow me” as I followed Christ out into the world.

7. More than likely, because I’m naturally more structured, I would create a “checklist” or sketch of things I wanted to see replicated in a person’s life before they were “sent out” to go gather new people to repeat the process. In addition to scripture memorization and a sense from them that they’ve learned how to obey the Jesus teachings that they’ve memorized, that list would include behaviors like 1. Ministering to the broken like Jesus 2. Praying like Jesus 3. Evangelizing like Jesus 4. Teaching like Jesus and 5. Leading like Jesus.

8. From a church leadership perspective, this process would be utterly difficult to manage, which is a good thing. We wouldn’t want to screw it up. It could only be guided, and that by those living the life of discipleship and actually engaged in the process. The only thing that could be guided would be the leaders themselves.

9. At some point there would be so much action, talk, and incredible stuff happening that many of the people who were in a “regular” small group would naturally gravitate over to the lifestyle of a disciple and join the emerging movement. Over a few years time there would be very few of the Americanized types of small groups left, and at some point they would simply run their course (though Christians would be free of course to start any kind of group they felt nurtured their walk with Christ). Those who simply wanted to “fellowship” would still have a long list of groups, teams, events, etc. to pick from, which would still serve an important function in the church community.

10. Within a few years a church would have a small growing army of people who…

…had experience regularly doing what Jesus did on a week in week out basis
…memorized every teaching block in the Gospel of Matthew
…learned how to obey, point by point, each teaching they had memorized
…had practiced and gained proficiency ministering, praying, evangelizing, teaching and leading like Jesus
…were naturally replicating themselves in the lives of others outside and inside the church
…and it all would happen “out there” instead of inside the hairball of the church’s infrastructure

Now, I just love this, and here’s why –

* I would find participating in a discipleship connection this way extremely scary and threatening. And I doubt I’d be very good at it. (I’ve never been able to memorize anything. I know my wife’s cell number, birthday, and our anniversary, and that’s about it. And these were learned at great personal cost.)

* It seems remarkably like how Jesus taught discipleship.

* It takes the spiritual disciplines out of the closet and puts them in the world, which is where Jesus needs them to be.

* It defines community in terms of service and self-sacrifice, that is, in living as Jesus lived.

* It goes against all conventional wisdom, which is where good ideas normally reside.

* No one has to cook or get a babysitter.

* The closest, deepest friendships are formed working side by side on a project that both people feel passionately about. Common experiences, common passions, and common purposes bind people much more tightly than banana pudding and three-bean casserole.

Have you ever noticed how often Jesus begins a parable with the “Kingdom of Heaven is like …”? Well, replace “Kingdom of Heaven” with “church”* and re-read those parables. For example,

(Mat 13:31-32) He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. 32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.”

How is your congregation a place where birds come and perch? How do you offer sanctuary to those who need it?

(Mat 18:23) “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. …

Is your church a place where servants forgive as they’ve been forgiven? A place that generously offers forgiveness to its own members?

(Luke 14:15-24) When one of those at the table with him heard this, he said to Jesus, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God.”

16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’

18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. …

21 “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’

22 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’

23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”

How is your congregation like man preparing a great banquet who invites many guests?

We live in a highly individualistic, highly consumerist society. Our members attend church looking for what services the church has to offer them. They feel far too little loyalty to their congregations, treating them like spiritual malls. And at just the time we need to be working against the culture and the self-centeredness of much of America and pleading with our members to become truly committed to our communities, I see a push toward a highly individualistic religion. It worries me.

Isn’t the central problem that we want to overcome with spiritual disciplines selfishness? Isn’t that the root of our problem with divorce? Isn’t that much of the struggle to be the church God called us to be?

And isn’t the solution to selfishness serving others? I mean, if the church continues to serve its members while not insisting that they become servants, how much like Jesus will our members be? And how can our members become servants other than by serving?

You see, I’m persuaded that much of the problem of our individual Christians is a problem of our churches as institutions. We aim too low. We coddle and cater to our members rather than placing before them a banquet of Godly mission to be shared with the world. Why are we surprised that they aren’t excited? We’ve trained them to be consumers, not servants, and one day, we leaders will have to answer for it.

Notice how in Romans 12 Paul speaks of individual transformation, but  this is expressed over and over again in terms of relationships within the Kingdom –

(Rom 12) Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will. 3 For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

The first section is individually directed, but the lesson is to sacrifice ourselves! “Spiritual act of worship” is equally well translated “spiritual act of service,” which suits the context better, and brings the verse into the overall argument of how to live in community.

4 Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Each gift relates the person with the gift to the Christian community. We prophesy to others. We serve others. We teach others. We encourage others. We contribute for others. We lead others. We show mercy to others. None of these gifts is individualistic. No mention is made of the solitary gifts of meditation, prayer, fasting, or study.

9 Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Love is not abstract. It is, rather, how we relate to each other.

11 Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. 12 Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Our prayer is in the Lord’s service. Nothing would be further from the thrust of this passage than praying selfishly or praying solely for ones own needs. It’s okay to pray, “Please make me like Jesus,” but only if we mean “Please make me someone who serves others as Jesus served.” If our goal is to have Jesus’s prayer life and his desire for solitude and his holiness but not his life of service, we’ve gotten our priorities all fouled up.

13 Share with God’s people who are in need. Practice hospitality. 14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse. 15 Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. 16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Each command is about service to others. For example, we get rid of conceit, not just because it makes us better people, but because it allows us to associate with those of low position.

17 Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Be careful to do what is right in the eyes of everybody. 18 If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone. 19 Do not take revenge, my friends, but leave room for God’s wrath, for it is written: “It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. 20 On the contrary: “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

After Paul has spent 11 chapters arguing against legalism and for unity of the body and for life in the Spirit, he tells us what the practical implications are — serve each other. And he continues the theme to the end of the book (4 more chapters).

Here’s the part of the chart that describes what community is all about –

• the journey from slavery to freedom in the Promised Land was a community journey
• devote selves to fellowship
• meet daily
• all things in common
• sharing
• breaking of bread
• eat together
• need each other
• rejoice and mourn with each other
• love each other
• commit to serve one another

These are, of course, just the “community” verses associated with baptism, the Lord’s Supper, or the word “gospel.” There are many, many more throughout the New Testament, such as Romans 12-15, four chapters all about how be a community of Christ.

Let’s start with some fundamentals. God’s covenant with Abraham was with him and his descendants — his family. God then made a covenant with Israel, being the descendants of Abraham via Isaac and Jacob. And God’s covenant with us is a covenant with the new Israel.

(Eph 3:6) This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

We are saved by being added, through faith, into the one body of Christ. Faith adds us to the saved community.

(Eph 2:14-16) For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, 15 by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, 16 and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.

The cross reconciled the two men — Israel and the Gentiles — to make “one new man out of two” making them into a single body, the body of Christ.

I know this is all a bit ethereal and all, but the point is that we do not have a personal Savior. We have a corporate Savior. Jesus died to join the two families into one, to join all nations everywhere, to bring us into community.

We aren’t called into a personal relationship with Jesus. Rather, we are called into a community — a kingdom — that Jesus founded that’s supposed to be so much like Jesus that we feel his presence when we’re with one another … that’s so much like Jesus that we’d die for each other.

There’s a well-worn sermon about how we can’t separate Jesus from his church — in answer to the tired cliché, “I love Jesus but not the church.” But the sermon, as usually preached, misses the point. People don’t like the institutional church largely because it’s often not very much like Jesus.

We often preach about individual Christians living like Jesus, which is good. We rarely preach about the church being like Jesus. And it’s really easier and better to look at it from the standpoint of the church. After all, it’s the church that’s the body of Christ. And the gifts God gives us are in us individually but they’re in us individually to serve within the church.

Isn’t that the point of 1 Cor 12, where some of us are said to be feet and some hands? Alone, we are quite insufficient, even comical — a single foot trying to walk! But together, we are whole and complete and capable.

It’s a little surprising that so many baptism, communion, and “gospel” passages point directly toward unity of the saints. I mean, it’s something everyone gives lip service to, but we really don’t take unity seriously, do we?

And yet … in Ephesians 4, the “one baptism” passage is all about the unity of God’s church. In 1 Corinthians, when Paul talks about the meaning of the Lord’s Supper, he emphasizes the unity it symbolizes. And the gospel is repeatedly expressed in terms of the unity of all people and all nations.

N. T. Wright is fond of pointing out that a major theme of the scriptures is God’s work through Christ to expand his covenant with Abraham to include all with faith in his Messiah. The gospel is not only about salvation, it’s about bringing unity to a world in desperate need for unity.

And yet the church is anything but unified! We divide over doctrine, over race, over worship styles, over denominations created to fight over issues most of us don’t even remember — and over just about everything that divides the world. We are a sad and pitiful excuse for what we’ve been called to be.

(Col 3:12-14) Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

Does this describe God’s church in the 21st Century?

Or how about –

(John 17:22-23) I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23 I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.

To go back to Stanley Hauerwas’ teaching that the church is to be like a colony of resident aliens, people who live in this world but aren’t of this world, a people who show the world an alternative society, a better society — just how well are we doing at that?

Christian community, life in the colony, is not primarily about togetherness. It is about the way of Jesus Christ with those whom he calls to himself. It is about disciplining our wants and needs in congruence with a true story, which gives us the resources to lead truthful lives. In living out the story together, togetherness happens, but only as a by-product of the main project of trying to be faithful to Jesus. (Resident Aliens p. 78)

You see, Hauerwas argues, simply enough, that if we’ll be like Jesus, we’ll be united. Makes sense. Isn’t happening. Therefore, we aren’t much like Jesus.

And so I think the path to unity — and to missional effectiveness — is submission to the life Jesus called us to. And this is hardly an easy thing, but surely we’re able to do better!

So how do we get to be more like Jesus? Well, lots of theories are out there, and few are out and out wrong. It’s just that most dance around the edges. For example, some teach that the path to being like Jesus is the spiritual disciplines — prayer, meditation, journaling, solitude, listening prayer, etc. And I’m sure these help, but they are merely helpers pointing us toward the genuine thing.

And some argue for deeper Bible study, which is a good and necessary thing, but Bible study often pushes us into over-focusing on theology and not sufficiently into doing the word.

Others focus on evangelism, which I’m all for. But evangelism is futility until we’ve first become like Jesus. Right?

Worse yet, we tend to call whatever we enjoy “evangelism,” so we start basketball and softball leagues for evangelistic purposes, or Weigh Down Workshops or bridge clubs or Fall Festivals. I mean, it seems that we can rationalize anything as evangelism … and when no one comes to Jesus through these works, we just keep on doing what we enjoy — which should tell us something about our true motivations.

As pointed out in by John Howard Yoder in The Politics of Jesus, pp. 130-131,

[T]here is no general concept of living like Jesus in the New Testament. According to universal tradition, Jesus was not married; yet when the apostle Paul, advocate par excellence of the life “in Christ,” argues at length for celibacy or for a widow’s not remarrying (1 Cor. 7), it never occurs to him to appeal to Jesus’ example, even as one of many arguments. … [T]here have been efforts to imitate his prayer life or his forty days in the desert: but never in the New Testament.

There is thus but one realm in which the concept of imitation holds – but there it holds in every strand of the New Testament literature and all the more strikingly by virtue of the absence of parallels in other realms. This is at the point of the concrete social meaning of the cross in its relation to enmity and power. Servanthood replaces dominion, forgiveness absorbs hostility. Thus – and only thus – are we bound by New Testament thought to “be like Jesus.”

This is big. And it’s right. Yoder quotes numerous passages each of which urges us to be like Jesus in his suffering and submission.

(Phil. 2:3-14) Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. … Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!

(1 Cor. 10:33b-11:1) I try to please everybody in every way. For I am not seeking my own good but the good of many, so that they may be saved. Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

(Matt. 20:25-28 ) Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

And so, just a few concrete ideas about being unified in the Christ-like sense –

* At your church make a pledge not to do a single outreach event unless another church in town is involved. Do nothing by yourself. Make this a spiritual discipline: never compete, always cooperate.

* And when you invite another church to work with you, find a church that needs you more than you need them. Throw all thoughts of fairness out the window! Be sure that you donate, work, and volunteer more than your fair share. Take delight in being on the giving end rather than the receiving end. Don’t enable laziness. Rather, work with a church with fewer resources and volunteers than yours.

* At least once a year, take communion with another church in town — especially a church that’s different from you somehow. Share the table with a church of a different race or different denomination or a different way of worshiping. Cross barriers for Jesus.

* If your town has a league of cooperating churches — especially a cross-denominational league — join and be active. Announce their events in your bulletin.

* If you town doesn’t have one, start one. Now I’m not talking about lunches where preachers get to together with other preachers for fellowship — I mean a working group that coordinates the works of a town’s congregations.

* Don’t dare settle for the merely symbolic. It’s great if many churches get together once a year and paint schools together, but that won’t change the world. Rather, sit down with churches across town and decide how, working together, God might work through you to alleviate the worst social problems in town — in the name of Jesus. Don’t push for legislation. Don’t hire an inner city minister. Rather, get all the churches together to attack poverty, crime, drugs, or illegitimacy by changing the hearts of those who suffer from these spiritual ills.

* Make sure that the solution includes getting your church members involved in very substantial service and self-sacrifice. If the members aren’t doing this, then it’s the wrong plan. Being like Jesus means the members serve and sacrifice. Period. There is no other path for Christians.

Now, will this be easy? Not at all. It’s actually impossible — unless God is with you. So pray like crazy, get ready to make mistakes and have to start all over again, and get ready for changes you can’t even imagine. That’s how God works.

This is, of course, an entirely insane plan. But I think it’s God’s plan.

(2 Cor 5:13-15) If we are out of our mind, it is for the sake of God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you. 14 For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Wright likens the world to a chalice or a violin — beautiful in itself but much more beautiful in anticipation of the wine it will hold or the music it will play. Thus, the world in which we live is beautiful especially because of the even greater beauty it will display when it becomes the dwelling of God.

Therefore, he argues, it is fitting that the church have a well-developed sense of beauty. Indeed, the theology of a new heaven and new earth should open up our artistic sensibilities for new, better art.

In the Churches of Christ, it’s particularly difficult to have an artistic sensibility, due to our Calvinistic roots. It’s well known that the Restoration Movement fled the Calvinistic view of salvation, but few realize that we kept the Calvinistic view of art and beauty.

When the Calvinists took over cathedrals in medieval Switzerland, they painted over the frescoes and melted down the statues, preferring plain and simple buildings — giving rise to the term “iconoclast,” being someone who destroys icons.

Some of this was due to an understanding of the commandment against graven images. Some was due to a desire to escape some of the excesses of the Catholicism of the day.

Barton W. Stone and Thomas and Alexander Campbell were former Presbyterians — Calvinists. Many of their converts came from the ranks of the Baptist churches, which were also very Calvinistic in those days.

Hence, we in the Churches of Christ prefer simple buildings and are suspicious of stained glass, steeples, and even crosses. We have no representational art in our auditoriums. Some preach sermons against the wearing of crosses (the logic of which I’ve never really followed). Even our baptistries are rarely decorated with more than the occasional Jordan River scene.

Luther, on the other hand, taught that art should be used in the service of the gospel, which led to an outflowing of Christian music (Bach, for example) and painting in Lutheran lands. But those of us touched by the Calvinistic tradition are much more into the left-brain side of things, with our creativity poured primarily into our sermons and theology (which is often quite creative, although not always in a good way).

Lately, our artistic yearnings have begun to find expression through Christian music. And our architecture is getting better. But we remain suspicious of the artistic gifts God gives us.

And yet … if God really does give talents and gifts, then surely our members blessed with the ability to paint, sculpt, design buildings, and compose music should find their gifts used most fully and beautifully in service of the gospel.

A few months ago, I posted several YouTube videos to show the beauty of music written to God’s glory. I invite readers to post links to favorite paintings, videos, and architecture in the comment section.

Now,  I must add that even a gift from God can be misused. We can waste money on architecture, for example, or we can worship a statue. But it’s a false economy to treat all artistry as wasted money. In fact, our buildings, for example, present a certain image of who we are to the world. And some of our buildings show us to be tight-fisted, joyless, pickled souls. We can do better.

Wright cites as a central verse 1 Cor 15:58 –

(1 Cor 15:58 ) Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

“Therefore” means because of what Paul just taught about our resurrection bodies, we should give ourselves to the Lord’s work. We are assured that it’s for a good purpose.

Wright concludes that our work will last into God’s future for us. It will not be destroyed. Therefore, Wright argues –

* We shouldn’t think of this life as something to be escaped. Rather, we live in a good, albeit fallen, world.

* Nor should we consider this world irredeemable. Only God can complete the redemption of the earth and those in it, but we are called to participate in that work — here and now.

* Our salvation is not for our personal, private benefit. God, rather, saved us for mission. Part of that mission is our being a foretaste of the new heaven that the entire world can see and be drawn to.

Which brings us to Wright’s understanding of the Kingdom –

* “Heaven” in “kingdom of heaven” is a euphemism for God. “Kingdom of God” is the intended sense, as many passages show. Moreover, “kingdom” has an active sense. “Reign of God” is a better translation. It’s not a place so much as a relationship. The Reign of God is simply those who were once in rebellion to their rightful King submitting to his rule.

* In the Old Testament, the prophets spoke of God rescuing (saving) Israel so that Israel would be a light for the Gentiles. He wasn’t so much saving them from Gentiles as for Gentiles.

(Isa 49:6) he says: “It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

And the point of saving the Gentiles was so that they, together with Israel, would be his rescuing stewards over creation.

* The Gospels thus become the template for Kingdom living. They are the story of God’s reign coming to earth as it is in heaven.

[The story of Jesus] isn’t just a story of some splendid and exciting social work with an unhappy conclusion. Nor is it just a story of an atoning death with an extended introduction. … It is the story of God’s kingdom being launched on earth as it is in heaven, generating a new state of affairs in which the power of evil has been decisively defeated, the new creation has been decisively defeated, the new creation has been decisively launched, and Jesus’ followers have been commissioned and equipped to put that victory and that inaugurated new world into practice.

To put it another way, if you want to help inaugurate God’s kingdom, you must follow in the way of the cross, and if you want to benefit from Jesus’s saving death, you must become part of his kingdom project. (204-205)

The obvious objection, as voiced by Steven Colbert, is that God’s going to fix it all anyway, so why bother? Wright responds,

Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of the creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow non-human creatures; and, of course, every prayer, all Spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world — all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. … I have no idea what this will mean in practice. (208-09)

1 Corinthians 3 comes to mind –

(1 Cor 3:12-15) If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14 If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15 If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

If we build well — if we teach a faith that saves and passes on to generation after generation — we’ve built of fireproof material, and our work will be with us in heaven. That work may well be the resurrected bodies of our children, grandchildren, and converts — and their children and grandchildren. It may be the resurrected bodies of those brought to Jesus by a church we helped plant or a missionary we helped support.

Wrights speaks as though more will survive the End than God’s holy people, but I don’t see it.

(2 Pet 3:10-12) But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare. 11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.

If I plant a garden, it’s hard to see the garden surviving the baring of the earth. Just so, if I paint the next Last Supper, I think it burns to a crisp. The only things that last are the saints.

But the point doesn’t greatly change. If I were to paint the next Last Supper to the honor of Jesus, and if this were to further his work, encourage the saints, and help convert the lost, my work will be rewarded. The souls I help find Jesus will be with me in heaven — indeed, they’ll be treasures in heaven.

Moreover, as noted in my earlier comment on treasures in heaven, by serving the Lord, I become the kind of person who will enjoy life with God in the new earth. I’ll be richly rewarded for my work, even if, despite my efforts, no one is converted. I’ll be changed. I’ll have fewer treasures in heaven than some, but I’ll still be in bliss.

Beginning at page 213, Wright argues that one part of the church’s mission is justice. By “justice” he means the realization of God’s plan to set the world right.

Wright warns us against the view of many that the world is such a mess that we’ve been saved to escape it. And he warns us against the “social gospel” view that man (or government) is the cure for man’s ills. Rather, true justice comes only through people, empowered by God through his Spirit, working in God’s mission.

Therefore, the solution isn’t a revolution against the powers — which would be a human solution. Nor do we wait for the 1000-year reign or the Rapture. That takes us entirely away from any responsibility — with us just waiting on God to finally do something.

Rather, the solution is found in realizing that the Kingdom has been inaugurated, we are part of it, and we have a role to play in bringing the Kingdom into further fruition — but not alone.

Debt relief

Wright likens the need for international debt relief to the need to end slavery 150 years ago. Few Americans are very knowledgeable of the question, although a few know that Bono, of U2 fame and a believer, has lobbied hard for it. And considerable debt relief has been granted thanks to Bono’s efforts.

The problem is simply that many countries have run up huge amounts of debt that they cannot service. As a result, money that normally would go to education or health care goes to pay interest, leaving the nations unable to escape poverty.

Were the nations American citizens, they’d take chapter 13 or 7 and get a fresh start. The international lending community has been much tougher, pushing these nations into deeper poverty than any bankrupt American, while the rich get, quite literally, richer.

The Biblical principles are actually pretty clear. Under the Law of Moses, debts were forgiven every 7 years and Jews were commanded to lend to the poor even if they knew they wouldn’t be repaid — even if the 7th year was only months away.

Jesus, of course, taught parables based on the urgency of debt forgiveness. We abstract these to be about forgiving sins — which is true — but they are only true about sin because they are first true about debt.

This is from an article in Time –

[Bono] first became interested in Africa’s economic plight in the 1980s, after the Live Aid concerts that raised money for Ethiopian famine victims. “My wife Ali and I ended up going to Ethiopia for some time doing relief work. We were so high on the idea that Live Aid raised $100 million—and then you discover years later that that’s what Africa pays every couple of weeks on old loans. It’s kind of a shock. I thought we’d never forget what we’d been through in Ethiopia, but you go back to your life and then those images just fade away.”

The images may have faded, but Bono’s curiosity did not. In 1999, the singer got involved with Jubilee 2000, now known as Drop the Debt, a London-based coalition of academics and activists who equated Third World debt with slavery. In the course of his work with the campaign Bono has met with Presidents, Prime Ministers and the Pope to get attention for the issue. He relishes the incongruity of a rock star talking about world policy, but he backs it up by knowing his stuff. He reads economics tomes and did some unofficial studying at Harvard. “I think that politicians are attracted at first by the celebrity,” says Harvard economics guru Jeffrey Sachs, who has huddled with Bono and the Pope on the debt issue. “But once they meet him, they find that he is an outstandingly capable interlocutor.” Senator Jesse Helms met with Bono to talk about starving children in Africa and ended up weeping—marking the first time a rocker has inspired an emotion in the Senator from North Carolina other than perhaps outrage.

Now, in recent years, the international community has begun to grant debt relief to the poorest of nations. The Bush administration has been particularly active. As Bono said to President Bush at a 2006 Prayer Breakfast,

“After 9/11, we were told America would have no time for the world’s poor. We were told that America would be taken up with its own problems of safety. … But America has not drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.” Bono said. “You have doubled aid to Africa. You have tripled funding for global health. And Mr. President, your emergency plan for AIDS relief and support of the Global Fund, has put 700,000 people onto life-saving antiretroviral drugs and provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from malaria.”

And yet, here’s the amazing thing — as Bush, an evangelical Christian — has pushed for debt relief or AIDs or malaria treatment for Africa, the American Christian community has reacted with a yawn. The liberals don’t get excited because they refuse to give Bush the credit. The conservatives don’t get excited because it’s for Africa and they oppose foreign aid.

And the Christians … well, the Christians as so coopted by the political parties that they seem incapable of independent thought. And so, rather than seeing our preachers excited over the help desperately poor people are receiving, we show no interest in the subject at all … because, to be honest, we really just don’t care.

Tax policy

Let me offer another example of the same phenomenon. In Alabama, Republican Governor Bob Riley recently proposed the repeal of all state sales taxes (4%) on groceries. Given the recent rise in food prices, many people would certainly benefit from that change. However, to pay for the change, Riley proposed to amend the Alabama constitution to repeal the income tax deduction for federal income taxes. The bill went nowhere.

Now, the higher your income, the higher percentage you pay in federal taxes. As a result, the federal income tax deduction in Alabama is worth much more to high income taxpayers than low income taxpayers — meaning that the poor actually pay a higher percentage of their income in Alabama income tax than the rich.

Riley, a Republican who is also a Christian, sought to change this outcome. The churches yawned and did nothing. The Democrats opposed it to avoid giving a victory to a Republican. The Republicans opposed it because it hurt the rich. The Alabama Christian Coalition sat the fight out. And yet, nearly every member of the Alabama legislature is a church-going Christian. Had the churches lobbied for the legislation, it would have passed.

Ultimately, there’s a huge disconnect between our Christianity and our politics. We compartmentalize our lives so that we preach about sacrifice on Sundays and vote for self-interest in Tuesdays.

Making justice God’s justice

Debt relief, tax reform, and such are all good things, but none of these reforms will fix our major social problems. Nonetheless, it’s often important to get bad governmental policies out of the way so that Kingdom solutions can more easily come into effect.

If people are too poor to feed and clothe their children, they’ll not be open to hearing the gospel from rich white people. Structural injustice has to be addressed –

(Isa 10:1-2)  Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, 2 to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless.

But to avoid the mistakes of the social gospel, we cannot ever pretend that we can fix the world via government. We can only keep the government from making things even worse! The cure is only found in Jesus.

This ultimately means evangelism but an evangelism that calls people to be servants of God, which will make us all better parents and better spouses. And as Jesus changes us, then one family at a time, society will get better.

Social justice is essential because social injustice destroys souls. But social justice does not heal souls. Only Jesus can do that.

Eden

Look at it this way. Back in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve walked with God. They were God’s household. It was no mere metaphor. They enjoyed communion with the Almighty in a very tangible, immediate way.

For a while, they did not sin. With one exception, they didn’t know how to sin. But they fell, and the Creation was cursed. Because sin cannot exist in Eden, Eden had to be taken away.

Today, by means of the Spirit, we enjoy God’s presence. Just as God dwelled with the Israelites in the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple, God dwells in each of us and in his church (especially) through his Spirit. He not only lives, he lives in and with us!

And his presence transforms us so that worship is not obedience to commands but a heartfelt desire, an expression of love leaping from the heart. It’s what we want to do. Just so, serving God and fleeing sin become the most natural things possible. It’s what we want to do.

But, of course, until the Resurrection, we still sin, and so we need forgiveness. But forgiveness is not the point. The point is becoming God’s person — someone who doesn’t even want to sin and who desperately wants to serve God.

The Prodigal Son

Is the gospel salvation? Oh, yes! Is it forgiveness? Oh, yes! Is it just forgiveness? Oh, no, it’s much more.

When the prodigal son returned to his Father, the first step was forgiveness. Relationship had to be restored. The sin had to be admitted, repented of, and forgiven. That’s the start.

But the son’s new relationship with his Father was not centered on forgiveness. Well, it was while he was on the road, but not for long. Soon it was time to celebrate, live to together, enjoy one another’s presence, eat together, and to get to work being about the Father’s business.

The son would, inevitably, sin again, and his Father surely was prepared to forgive again. But their relationship was not centered on sin, forgiveness, and sinning again. Their relationship centered on the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s response in acting as a faithful son should act.

You see, thanks to 500 years of Reformation theology, we treat the gospel as being about nothing but salvation by faith — but it’s much, much more. Forgiveness is just the door back into our Father’s household.

For the first time

Imagine that the prodigal son, alone in the pigsty, decides to be rescued from his sorry state. And so he goes over to his car, puts his hand on the radio, and says, “I believe that the man I rebelled against is my father.” Well, he’d still be with the pigs!

He was rescued (saved) because he humbled himself, deciding he was ready to be a servant in his father’s household. He was willing to go from being a slave to his sin and degradation to being a slave in the service of his father. He learned true humility. He learned to call someone other than himself “lord.”

And as a result, the Father freed him from sin and degradation but also from servitude in his own home. After all, he was no longer in rebellion. His heart was changed. Finally, he was willing to be a son.

You see, when he asked for his inheritance, he was telling his father he was dead to him. After all, no one inherits from a living man. And yet his father gave him what he asked, suffering the insult. The prodigal son had never really been a son.

But when he returned, by his humiliation he learned the essence of sonship — he learned to honor his father and to accept whatever lot his father might choose for him. And because of this, the Father treated him as the true son he’d become — for the first time.

Human

We were never meant for sin. It seems so natural and addictive. It’s so hard to escape. And yet, in those times when we do escape and find ourselves willingly in God’s service, we find ourselves becoming truly human, truly the beings God intended us to be.

And, fortunately, we have help in this task. God pours his Spirit into us so that we’ll change, so that sin will make us miserable and service in the Kingdom will give us delight. And although we’d be content to be slaves in God’s household, he lifts us up and calls us son.

Oh, and communion is a foretaste of the heavenly banquet (Rev 3:20), where we’ll sit with God and eat the fatted calf, wearing a robe (Rev 7:9).

I came upon a child of god
He was walking along the road
And I asked him, where are you going
And this he told me
…
I’m going to try and get my soul free
We are stardust
We are golden
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

– Joni Mitchell

Unlike Ms. Mitchell, I don’t think the solution is to attend a rock and roll concert, but this much is right: we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.

A question

What if we thought of the Sermon on the Mount, not as new law or as proof we need grace, but as a roadmap to becoming truly human?

Thanks to Monday Morning Insight, I found this recent article in the Washington Post questioning the benefits of short-term mission trips.

Fairfax Community Church is repositioning its mission trips “to get away from the vacation-with-a-purpose, large groups going somewhere to build something” focus, said Alan MacDonald, the church’s pastor of global engagement.

The church is sending out smaller teams of experts to work on projects with partner churches. For example, it is sending information technology professionals who are fluent in Spanish to a church in the Dominican Republic to train members in computer skills so they can get better jobs, MacDonald said.

…

But research has found that the trips tend to have few long-term effects on the local people or on the mission travelers. Some projects take away work from local people, are unnecessary and sometimes dangerous.

…In Monrovia, Liberia, three years ago, tragedy occurred when visitors built a school to their standards instead of Liberian standards. During the monsoon season, the building collapsed, killing two children, Livermore said.

…

A 2006 study in Honduras found that short-term mission groups spent an average of $30,000 on their trips to build one home that a local group could construct for $2,000.

This reminded me of a 2005 article in Christianity Today I stumbled across a while back. The author cites research that shows that participating in short-term missions does not increase support for missions later in life.

In fact, there was a great series of articles that aired opposing views, strongly suggesting that we need to do these differently or invest in long-term missions instead.

Who Gets ‘Socially Rich’ from Short-Term Missions? | How communities feel about themselves after receiving a group may be more important than the number of latrines dug or homes built. (July 8, 2005)

Mission Trips or Exotic Youth Outings? | Not everything in your church’s missions budget may be about missions. (July 7, 2005)

Do Short-term Missions Change Anyone? | Or do one week’s good intentions fall flat without a concerted effort to follow through? (July 6, 2005)

Are Short-Term Missions Good Stewardship? | More than 2 million teens go on such trips ever year, and giving may exceed that given to long-term missionaries. But is short-term ministry built to last? (July 5, 2005)

Study Questions Whether Short-Term Missions Make a Difference | Missionaries don’t keep giving after they return; hosts prefer money to guests, Calvin sociologist finds. (June 20, 2005)

I make no claim to understanding missions or how to manage a missions program. But I do feel that our churches generally do a poor job of it. After all, who in a given congregation has any expertise or knows where to go for help? And so, purely for lack of training, we manage based on good intentions rather than experience, research, and actual need. We in the Churches of Christ aren’t alone. It appears that lots of churches struggle in this area.

But as I poke around in the area, I’m finding that there are actually quite a few resources and many experts in the field, although the expertise rarely makes it to the congregational level in the Churches of Christ. We’re so very focused on theological questions and on building the local church that precious little gets said in the religious press and books about how to do foreign or domestic missions.

And so, here are a few thoughts to consider asking about your short-term mission efforts –

* Ten years from now, will anything have been changed at the place we’re going to? If so, what?

* Could this be done as well or better by locals?

* Could this be done less expensively by locals?

* Would the money have a bigger impact if invested in long-term missionaries?

* Could we do something similar in our own communities, investing the travel cost in helping people here? I mean, painting houses and churches in a foreign land is truly a good thing, but isn’t painting houses and churches in our hometown or nearby more likely to build the kingdom? To change our community? To make converts? To build a unity that matters?

Now, we’ve at times sent people to the mission field to do Bible studies, often with the many resulting conversions. That’s a long-term impact! But other times, I think we’ve just felt better about ourselves.

Therefore, it’s hardly true that all short-term mission trips are suspect, but it seems wise to me that we think about what we’re doing in light of current research and ask whether we’re truly being the best possible stewards.