Coming in October:
Okay….okay…I get it. It’s not as catchy nor anywhere near as intense as Shark Week. I mean, who in their right mind would try and top Shark Week? I did want to announce, though, that in October (one month from today) we will begin Starfish Month here at Pursuing Glory.
What’s Starfish Month, you ask?
Well, nearly nine years ago this October, I was part of a conference that was hosted by some dear friends in Kansas City. These friends had invited a long-time inspiration of mine, Wolfgang Simson, to come and share about what he felt the Lord was doing in the Earth. Wolf, as some of you know, wrote Houses That Change the World and at that time was putting the finishing touches on a new book that he eventually published himself called the Starfish Manifesto.
Houses That Change the World helped birth the idea of house churches in the hearts and minds of many early adopters within the house church movement. The Starfish Manifesto was kind of a next step. Where Houses was a micro level view of how churches should function, the Starfish Manifesto was the macro view of how a movement of house churches could reach the world for Jesus. It was next level thinking beyond anything I had come across at that point.
Also during this conference, I had the opportunity to spend a few minutes here and there chatting with Wolfgang. I remember him saying very firmly at one point that if we wanted to understand the true nature of what the Lord was doing in the church in that hour, we had to go and read a secular book called “The Starfish and the Spider” by Ori Brafman and Rod Beckstrom. When the conference was finished I hurriedly ran to my nearest bookstore and picked up a copy with a gift card I received. The book, which was all about the power of leaderless organizations, blew my mind and changed the way I’ve thought about the church ever since. Don’t let the fact that this is a secular book throw you. There is so much here gleaned from history and nature that you will quickly see the Lord’s inspiration in this book, whether the author’s meant it that way or not.
Needless to say, that month of October all the way back in 2008 was a formative year. Much of what came from that time formed the basis for what was to come as we worked to plant and raise up house churches here in Iowa. Every October, as the weather gets colder here, I look back sentimentally on that season and wish I could share it with you all. So, this October, I plan to do just that.
Starting Monday, October 2nd, I’m going to host a sort of book club here on the blog. Mondays and Thursdays in October I’ll share a brief synopsis of a chapter here on the blog with my thoughts on the content. Tuesdays and Fridays during October, I’ll take some of the thoughts and apply them to how they relate to the church. Throughout the week in October, I’ll also be sharing short excerpts from the condensed version of Wolfgang’s Starfish Manifesto, the Starfish Vision, on my Twitter feed. All of this adds up to us talking about how Jesus designed his church to function like a starfish.
Why am I telling you all now? To get you prepared, of course. First, I would love it if one or two of you joined me in re-reading “The Starfish and the Spider.” If that sounds interesting to you, now is the time to pick yourself up a copy of the book. You may also want to jump straight to Wolf’s Starfish Vision booklet and dive into what you find there. Regardless, I hope you join me in Reformation month reading and thinking about how there is still more reformation left ahead for the church and strategizing about how we can be part of it.
It’s not Shark Week…but it might just cause you to change the world.
Church as Family
This morning as I was scrolling through social media, I saw one of the people that I follow talk about how modern church is like a school and it should be more like a support group (think AA). Both of these are true statements. While I agree with both parts of this statement1, I believe the pattern for church was built on something much more ancient: family.
This shouldn’t surprise us. God is a Father and a Son in relationship with each other. Jesus emphasized the brotherhood of all believers (Matthew 23:8). This wasn’t just a term of affection, but a call to really act as brothers of a family. New Testament churches were often started in the homes of men or women of peace (see Luke 10:6) who would give a church planter an audience to his or her extended family. The spirit of family within each church would be greatly aided by the fact that most of the early members were part of the same family. Paul himself saw his apostolic ministry in the context of being a parent to the churches he planted (see 1 Corinthians 4:15, 1 Thessalonians 2:7). The church functioned first and foremost as a family.
I don’t think it’s surprising to most of us that the early church acted like a family. I think what surprises many is when churches today act as family towards each other. Often we pick other organizing principles, particularly those of business and education and structure our time around production and education instead of what builds us up as family.
So how does the church act as a family together?
They love each other. This starts with spending time together in a way the builds and facilitates relationship. There is plenty of time and space for relationships to develop, trust to form, and support to be given. Many times this love is expressed through serving each other in ways that reflect how Jesus has loved us and laid His life down for us.
Commitment is seen. Often church is seen as something that can be walked away from when it becomes inconvenient. If the teaching becomes stale, I’ll look for something better. If the worship becomes out-dated, there’s a more contemporary worship gathering down the street. But when churches act like families, the members don’t bail at the first sign of conflict or the opportunity to get a better experience. They commit to the bonds of love that the Lord has called us to.
There is mutual give and take. In every family, each member fulfills a roll of some kind. Rare is the family gathering where one member of the family does all of the talking. There is a back and forth kind of conversation that happens. Not everything everyone says in a family is of equal value. There are various levels of maturity, but conversation is the main method of learning and interaction and it produces well-rounded disciples.
There is growth and reproduction. Every family that doesn’t grow and reproduce will die off. I’m part of a large extended family in the natural, helping raise the fourth generation of Kolders that have come from the line of my Grandpa and Grandma Kolder. But each generation has had to grow up, move out of mom and dad’s house, and have little Kolders of their own. The same is true for the church. Family can seem safe, but there is a responsibility in family to step out, grow up, and pass on what you’ve received as part of your family to the next generation. Churches do this when they reach the lost, make disciples, and pass on the dynamic of Christianity as family to those they are discipling.
There is a lost generation of men and women all across our country. Not only are they far away from God, but they have a hunger in their heart for something they’ve never had: family. The answer starts when a person enters into a life-transforming relationship with God as their Father. It’s fully recognized, though, when a flesh and blood spiritual family adopt this new believer as one of their own. This is the reality that drives out the orphan spirit in us once and for all. To do that, the church may need to stop acting like a school or a business and devote themselves to becoming a family once more.
Photo Credit: Family by Randen Pedersen
1Church as we know it has largely adopted a meeting style from the educational system (one person teaching, rows of students, listening-based). Support groups such as AA have much to offer the church as a means for growing their body (high accountability, high intimacy, intentional mentoring, etc.).
Bedtime Routines, the Gospel, & Discipleship
Every night we have a certain bedtime routine where we read our kids a story from the Bible, pray with them, and tuck them into bed at night. However, the last three or four months or so, my youngest has started to ask us to tell her “the Jesus things” before we tuck her in. What she means by “the Jesus things” is the story of how Jesus rescued her (and all of us) from sin and its consequences. My daughter uses this as an opportunity to stay up late. I’m using it as an opportunity to soak her soul in the Gospel.
Last night on my 97th time telling my daughter “the Jesus things” I started to realize that I was only telling her part of the Gospel. See, I told her about sin, about how she was separated from God, about how Jesus came and lived, taught, healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, and taught people how to be close to God. I told her about Jesus’ death and the cruel way He was treated. I even told her about how Jesus was raised from the dead and because of that resurrection, when we receive Christ, we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God.
What did I miss?
Last night, I realized I missed anything that happens after saying “Yes” to Jesus. You see, I had focused on the theological, evangelistic portion of the Gospel…the “sign here” kind of Gospel that you come to expect from used-car-salesmen-style evangelists. what I hadn’t told her was what to expect after that and why it was still good news.
After I realized it, I changed the last few lines of my finely honed presentation to include a couple thoughts about what that would look like. It got me thinking about how often we present the Good News to people about Christ as a decision to make that will make their life better, but we present discipleship to people as a cross to bear. While I definitely believe that there is a cross to bear in discipleship, I do not believe that Jesus is the Good-News-yin to discipleship as a bad-news-yang.
So what’s the good news in discipleship? It’s simple and its what caused the first disciples to leave their businesses, family, and comfort and face persecution and death to spread the Gospel–we get to be like Jesus. Jesus put it this way: “A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher,” (Luke 6:40).
That’s the good news in discipleship–that we can be like Jesus. This man who we begin to learn how to follow after coming to Him and surrendering everything, actually has a plan to make us like Him. We will grow up into all aspects of Him–His character, His power, His nature–everything Jesus was and is we get to grow into. This is the good news that keeps us saying yes to the discipleship process. It’s good news to our hearts when we’re tired and weary. Most importantly, it’s not the dreaded fine print to what had previously looked like a really good deal.
So, I told my daughter a little different Gospel. I told her when she says yes to “the Jesus things,” she gets to grow up and be like Jesus. I intend to tell those I’m discipling the same thing. My guess is they haven’t heard it from me nearly enough.
Maybe you should go back and check your Gospel, too?
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 