We’re working our way through Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony
In the last post of this series, we consider John Howard Yoder’s description of a “confessing” church —
Rejecting both the individualism of the conversionists and the secularism of the activists and their common equation of what works with what is faithful, the confessing church finds its main political task to lie, not in the personal transformation of individual hearts or the modification of society, but rather in the congregation’s determination to worship Christ in all things.
We might be tempted to say that faithfulness rather than effectiveness is the goal of a confessing church. Yet we believe this is a false alternative. … For the confessing church to be determined to worship God alone “though the heavens fall” implies that, if these heavens fall, this church has a principle based on the belief that God is not stumped by such dire situations. For the church to set the principle of being the church above other principles is not to thumb our noses at results. It is trusting God to give us the rules, which are based on what God is doing in the world to bring about God’s good results. (p. 46).
We later considered Hauerwas’ example of sending missionaries to Libya rather than soldiers — an example that strikes very close to home in these days.The point is too important not to spend some time reflecting on what this means. Consider the typical American Church of Christ. We don’t put a flag on the stage; we send out missionaries — but we send out more soldiers than missionaries. I’m not a pacifist, but I do think our churches should be sending more missionaries than soldiers. We should be Kingdom-centered people, and so Kingdom choices should be typical. Not everyone is gifted to mission work, but far more are than we send.
Just so, our Christian high schools should be much more about sending missionaries and church planters and raising up “vocational” missionaries (missionaries who are self-supporting) than about SAT scores and athletic scholarships. When our Christian high schools advertise and evaluate themselves based on the same standards as secular schools, well, they just aren’t that Christian, are they?
I have the same concerns re private school mission work that I have re teen program mission work. Those missions are usually actually about the teens — giving the teens a life-changing experience. Missions should be about the mission. Kids should go with adults (including especially but not just their parents) on mission efforts the adults go on because of the mission. Private high schools should not try to replace the church and the family. Rather, they should work with the churches so that their children are active in the adult mission and benevolent works of their congregations. (I know it’d be hard, but it can be done. Maybe not every church will get it, but enough will that the kids can do mission with adults who do mission for the sake of mission and who will lovingly mentor kids to continue in the programs.)
You see, the key to being a confessing church is to have confessing adults, that is, adults who are committed to the mission for the sake of Jesus. They feed the poor out of love, not so they can shove a tract in their hands, but they teach Jesus because they love Jesus and love the people they serve. No bait and switch. They do mission work out of love, not to earn their way to heaven. The adults are active in more than attendance — out of love, not duty and certainly not fear.
Rather, the adults don’t wait for their leaders to come up with a program. Because they love Jesus and those in need, they initiate efforts on their own and invite the rest of the church to join them. Christ rules the church through the Spirit. The elders and staff just help keep it all organized and communicated.
Now, to become this kind of church is no easy or overnight task. It takes time. Let me suggest some steps to take, although the Spirit may refuse to do it in quite this logical order —
1. The leaders must be united. They don’t have to agree on everything. Unity of the eldership is essential. Unity of the elders with the staff is essential. If you’re divided in your leadership, loving each other will be harder than it has to be. Congregational life will be miserable. Get the leadership fixed, even if you have rebuke or even fire some ministers or rebuke or ask some elders to resign. There is no way around this one.
2. Submit to the leaders. Leaders can’t lead if the church won’t submit. Submission is a hard teaching in our culture, but if you are part of a congregation, you’re commanded to submit to the leadership. There may be times to rebuke a leader, as the Bible teaches, but there is no time to rebel or murmur.
3. Love one another as Christ loved the church. Love is about sacrificing for others. It’s about not getting your way. In fact, it’s about loving others so much that you prefer that they get their way. It’s not a democracy. It’s not about being fair. It’s about surrendering for the sake of Jesus — just as he did. If your love isn’t costing you something that hurts, it’s not really Christlike.
Obviously, the elders should lead the way, as should all other leaders. But no one gets to wait until the elders are perfect. Examples among the leaders help, but they aren’t a condition or an excuse.
4. “Love one another” requires hospitality. The members must open their homes to each other — even though that means cleaning house with a 7-year old and a 9-year old. If a mother of young children chooses to be hospitable, others at church should arrive early and help her get ready. You see, the American practice of the homemaker getting her house ready all by herself is not Christian. Rather, if your small group is going to meet in Sarah’s house, and Sarah needs the help, get there early with a broom and wash cloth and go to scrubbing — and don’t ask permission. She’ll say, no, she doesn’t need the help. That is, she’ll lie because that’s what we good people do. But if you show up a few hours early with cleaning equipment and a determined look, she’ll let you in — and love you for the rest of your life as you’ve never been loved before.
5. “Love one another” requires all sorts of crazy, counter-intuitive things like that. We had a member lose much of his house from a tornado while he was out of town. By the time he could drive home, members of the church had spontaneously rescued his belongings and begun repairs! We had a couple adopt twin babies. They were out of town for weeks working through the legalities. When they returned exhausted, their house was clean, the baby room was pristine, and the grass was cut. They didn’t ask. This is love.
6. “Love one another” requires that you spend time together besides sitting together in pews during the assembly. Small groups is the classic solution. Accountability groups can be even better. But the very best thing is doing mission together — painting houses side by side, traveling to Honduras together to teach the Bible — these kinds of things bond you to your brothers and sisters in ways that can’t be replicated. But you still need to have times of just plain fun. Not everything has to be mission, but mission needs to be big.
7. A church that loves each other in this way will grow because members will invite their friends and new people in town. Bickering against the leaders, division, and lukewarm love will destroy the life of the congregation. Submission and sacrificial love will make the church become the church Jesus died to create. The church will become the Kingdom, because the Kingdom is where Jesus reigns as king and people submit to him. And if we can’t submit to each other, made in the image of God and bearing the image of Christ, we can’t really submit to Jesus. You see, it’s really pretty much the same thing because Jesus’ command is to love each other as he loves us.
8. A church that loves each other will find it easy to love others. Once your love-muscles have had a good work out, it becomes easier to love others. Indeed, if you can put up with your brothers and sisters — well, once you master that, it’s easy enough to master dealing with non-church members, many of whom are easier to love than some of the church members! (Hard-to-love, extra-grace members come with the franchise, you know.)
9. Therefore, a church matures from the inside out — we love each other, and that draws outsiders to the church but also draws the church toward outsiders. True love can’t be bounded by the borders of the Kingdom.
Well, I’m out of room, but that’s a pretty good start on how to be a confessing church: be like Jesus.
On Facebook, one friend mentioned being at church when two people were introduced: a returning missionary and a soldier returning from deployment. You can guess which got the standing ovation and which got the polite applause, right?
Great thoughts throughout this post. Your point about how Christian schools evaluate themselves also goes for Christian families, Christian churches, etc. For too long we’ve been content to use the world’s standards.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
We attended the South Florida lectureships this past weekend, and I saw something that really enthused me. The Palm Beach Lakes Church of Christ hosted the event, and I saw one of their elders walk out of the auditorium (he was seated up near the front) in the middle of the Sunday morning service. A few minutes later, he returned with a lady who was visiting and they both took a seat together right in front of me. Throughout the service, as we transitioned from one thing to another – communion, sermon, etc – he would lean over and tell her what we were doing. Due to the lectureship, they had altered their normal order of events for the day and the class times (breakout session) were held after the worship time. As such, when class time started, he invited her to move with him back to the front to sit with him and his wife during the class time.
I just found it comforting to see a shepherd actually shepherding in this way. To leave his place by his wife, and take a seat with a visitor so that she would feel welcomed. I also saw him writing down his personal contact information with a “call if you have any questions” that he later handed to her. To me, this is what it means to shepherd. To set yourself aside and assist another in need. To make yourself available, not only to the flock, but also those who are showing an interest in the flock!
I took down mental notes to myself in case I ever get the honor to shepherd a flock one day. If I ever attain this honor, then I want to shepherd like Jesus would and not “serve tables” as it were. But doing this is a big learning process.
Jay, your item #2 suggests: “Submit to the leaders. Leaders can’t lead if the church won’t submit. Submission is a hard teaching in our culture, but if you are part of a congregation, you’re commanded to submit to the leadership. There may be times to rebuke a leader, as the Bible teaches, but there is no time to rebel or murmur.”
Submission can be brought about in several ways– coercion and manipulation being popular choices– but the only legitimate method for elders is to do so by example. So, where is our model of submission? In our current structure, to whom do the congregational elders submit? To one another? No, that won’t fly. The sheep then can rightly argue that they should be able to follow the same dynamic. To the congregation as a whole? That would make the elders into elected representatives, subject to the consent of the governed.
The Ephesian elders appear to have submitted to Paul, and later perhaps to Timothy. Do we have a modern analog? Should we?
I yearn to submit to a Godly leadership that fosters unity and good communication. It’s just hard to find one. But I think many are more than willing to submit if they can find it. I know there is much I can learn from a leadership like that. But the leadership has to have creditibility and be worthy of respect. Otherwise, I can stay home and learn more on my own than what I will learn from them. At least intellectually. But then I am missing the relational element that is so important.
“Just so, our Christian high schools should be much more about sending missionaries and church planters and raising up “vocational” missionaries (missionaries who are self-supporting) than about SAT scores and athletic scholarships.”
I’m a product of one of those high schools (Goodpasture, ’78): their functions are not to produce missionaries; you’d be surprised (1) how many Baptists – and others – attend Church of Christ schools in the Nashville area, and (2) how relatively few members can afford the tuition. Daily Bible classes are taught by those who are generally available; they’re not taught by scholarly trained teachers. A homogeneous Church of Christ high school student body is pretty much going to be a small, undercapitalized facility.
Considering the diverse theological background of the student body then, the best that most of them accomplish are forms of local benevolence. Certainly more substantial missional activities could be attempted, but that would require a certain degree of doctrinal accommodation that most schools would have difficulty accomplishing that wouldn’t divide parents and/or children or result in the marginalization of a significant portion of the student body. Generally speaking our high schools have avoided evangelizing juveniles out of deference to their parents and their churches and probably to avoid the misuse of spiritual authority: as far as young people are concerned, we would probably prefer our congregations, not our high schools, do the evangelizing.
The colleges and universities are much different; bringing together students for a relatively short period of time with Bible departments that are distinctive theologically and historically Church of Christ. One attends our institutions of higher learning understanding that our religious classes are taught from the context of our particular manifestation of the Stone-Campbell Movement. We also accept that even young adults are freer to decide whether or not to be evangelized or not.
Charles,
I’m not sure where you’re headed, but if we were to, for example, establish bishops over elders, then we’d merely move the problem to another level: to whom will the bishops submit? Ultimately, someone has to be submissive to Jesus as an under-shepherd.
Why is it inadequate for the elders to submit to one another? It doesn’t normally work in Churches of Christ because we teach elders they answer to no one but Jesus. Therefore, even very bad elders are very hard to remove. But in my church, new elders must covenant to resign if asked to do so by the other elders. That’s a simple way to gently remove a man who needs to step down.
Bob,
I’m not entirely following you. For example, a mission trip to Honduras to paint houses, install a water well, etc. would not invoke the CoC / Baptist theological differences so long as the teens are doing benevolent work rather than evangelism — which is entirely typical of trips that teens participate in. In fact, a CoC with a non-sectarian heart, that doesn’t seek the damn its Baptist neighbors, would have little problem inviting Baptist children to participate in its mission works and have Baptists join.
15 years ago, my own church was once host to several Presbyterian (PCA) teens who participated in our youth ministry while their church was relocating and temporarily without a youth pastor. Denominational lines can be crossed even in the CoC.
You wrote,
My point exactly. Why not? Why is our goal, as Christian parents, to get our kids into Ivy League schools and athletic scholarships? Why are our goals the same as the secular world’s goals? Why wouldn’t Baptist parents won’t their children to consider careers in ministry just as CoC parents should?
I’m not opposed to academic and athletic scholarships and admissions to fine schools. I’m just opposed to those things being the goal of our schools. We need to ask: how effective are our schools at producing disciples, that is, believers whose lives have been transformed by Jesus to be willing to give up everything for him?
“Why is our goal, as Christian parents, to get our kids into Ivy League schools and athletic scholarships? ”
For the most part, that’s not the goal of Church of Christ parents sending their children to Church of Christ schools. Or of Baptist, Methodist/Wesleyan, Presbyterian, etc. parents. As Goodpasture describes it: “It is the goal of the entire staff to equip students with concepts, values, and tools to meet life’s challenges through Christian principles, self-discipline, and organizational skills. The staff encourages each student to love God, to show concern for mankind, and to respect himself and his role in society.” I think it’s to their credit that our high schools have not tried to teach our peculiar doctrines in our schools and have deferred to parents in those matters.
I suspect most would still probably prefer their children be introduced to missions through their congregations or denominations. For instance, the youth group (with a bunch of the adults) at Fairview Road, Columbia (Mo.), did, in fact, spend a trip to Honduras helping to install sanitary facilities in Honduras last summer. There are plenty of similar accounts, and summertime is when they get these things done. To some extent, our schools would be competing with our churches for the available time. H.S. faculty are also probably taking advantage of the time off for breaks of their own and to work in their own churches.
The plurality of my graduating class who went to college went to Lipscomb; many of those who went to state schools went to Tennessee Tech. Most of us didn’t get athletic scholarships (and the ones who did went to small schools like Lipscomb) or go to schools that would leave us under enormous debt. That trend has held up across the years, considering the alumni newsletters and e-mail I get from time to time. However, those of us who were believers before we graduated seemed to have remained in our churches and active to some extent.
You have a great idea; it would be interesting to see how the idea would work out. I suspect the non-Church of Christ parents would fear poaching their kids for our denomination. Not that there’s a lack of opportunity in other churches. One structural benefit of being a well-organized denomination is the level of activities available outside the congregation: the Baptists and Methodists (even the Disciples) are quite good at this.
Jay said: “I’m not sure where you’re headed, but if we were to, for example, establish bishops over elders, then we’d merely move the problem to another level: to whom will the bishops submit? Ultimately, someone has to be submissive to Jesus as an under-shepherd.”
Charles says: “This presumes a hierarchy, rather than a network, in leadership. The RCC model is not the only possiblity. I personally have experiences with elders who voluntarily submitted to the oversight and counsel of apostles, who themselves submit to personal oversight and counsel from other people. (How did the connection between Peter and Paul work? At one juncture, Paul sought Peter’s recognition; at another point he bearded him in his own den. That’s not hierarchy, that’s functional relationship.) I remember my first exposure to such a system, and recall thinking, ‘They have a Pope hidden around here somewhere.’ It turned out not to be true at all.”
Jay asked: Why is it inadequate for the elders to submit to one another?
For the exact same reasons you would offer for the sheep. If peer-accountability is adequate, why submit to elders? I have a personal experience where one elder had an affair with the other elder’s wife. An ugly, and thankfully unusual circumstance, but the church was left hanging in mid-air, with no one to call for help or counsel. Thankfully, there was eventual repentance, but the whole group had to receive help and counsel from another established congregation in town in order to survive and heal.
In less unusual cases, I have seen multiple instances wherecongregations split due to fractures in the leadership. I also have experience with congregations that stagnated and finally petrified because the leaders had things as they liked it, whether it was good for the sheep or not. Those who would live had to leave. I am not decrying elders as evil. Just recognizing them as human.”
Jay noted: “But in my church, new elders must covenant to resign if asked to do so by the other elders. That’s a simple way to gently remove a man who needs to step down.”
And if he doesn’t? Or if it’s more than one elder? Historically, the sheep have been forced to take sides. How many times have we seen this happen? Your covenant is like any other contract, which as you know better than most as a lawyer, only really works as long as it is not really necessary. In your case, this is a contract without benefit of any recourse for a breach. It works until the day it no longer works.
The church in the city model may offer an alternative. Leaders of one group might agree to the oversight of elders in another group, or to area apostles, or to individual elders from other groups. Not in a pyramid, but in a network. I am not saying this is the only way, but the model of “We, the elders, are now wise enough to shepherd ourselves” has both history and hypocrisy against it. The centurion’s faith was based on the submission to God he saw in Jesus, and the concomitant authority he understood to come with submission.
In my experience, the man who says, “I submit only to Christ”… doesn’t.
I’m not a pacifist either – in the sense of denying the government the use of the sword. But the sword is “outside the perfection of Christ” (Michael Sattler, Confession of Schleitheim 1527) and therefore CHristians don’t use the sword while the world legitimately uses it.
But what you say (in this quote) is frightening, isn’t it?
Alexander