Christian Ethics and the New Media: Introduction and Media Defined

Christian Ethics and the New Media: Scripture and Communication

Christian Ethics and the New Media: The Christian and the New Media

The Local  Church and the New Media

Just as the individual Christian has responsibility for right, ethical living in the realm of social networking and the New Media, local churches also play pivotal roles of responsibility in such a plethora of media.

Over her history, the Church has been fairly consistent in her adoption of various new technologies and media.  Whether it was the use of scrolls, codexes, books, magazines, newspapers, radio or television, the Church has generally done a fair job of keeping up with societal and technological changes and paradigm shifts in the forms and mediums of communication.

According to the Barna Group,

“People within the Christian community are just as immersed in (and dependent upon) digital technologies and social networks as are those outside of it. Both evangelical Christians and other born again Christians emerged as statistically on par with national norms when it came to each of the 15 different areas that were studied. In other words, matters of faith played very little role in differentiating people’s technological habits.”[1]

In a world that is increasingly connected and compartmentalized, the Church is left with a pressing problem.  On the one hand, according to David Kinnaman, “Church leaders have to strike the delicate balance between the spiritual and cultural potential of tech tools without surrendering to the false promise of these tools. Having the means of reaching the masses – for instance, through podcasting – is a good thing.”[2] The New Media, as a paradigm-shifting, conversation changing form of information communication, is precisely poised to be used in powerfully productive ways.  “Yet, nothing matches the potency of life-on-life discipleship. In this respect, social networking and blogs can be effective tools to intimately connect with a small, natural network of relationships. The key is using the technology in a way that is consistent with your calling and purpose, not just an addictive self-indulgence.” [3]

This statement by Kinnaman reveals both the weakness and the power of the New Media.  On the one hand, for its ability to quickly, effectively, efficiently and economically communicate information, the New Media is unmatched and unparalleled in human history.  Yet, this strength is also the New Media’s greatest weakness, for in providing such volumes of information, facades of familiarity and community can be erected and these facades can in fact impede any real attempts at valid, human relationship-building interaction.  For the Church, this means quite simply that there is no replacement for face-to-face, human, organic relationship growth.  Humans are communal creatures.[4] The New Media does not, and cannot satisfy this basic need.

Furthermore, the Church has a moral and ethical responsibility to work through the issues that these New Media present.  Kinnaman goes on to say

“One recent study we completed among teenagers showed that just 9% of church-going teens had learned something helpful about technology in their church during the past year. As each new generation becomes increasingly enmeshed with technology, these discussions and choices cannot be left to chance. Control, image, relevance, immediacy, transparency, purity, truth, stewardship, and escapism are some of the many issues that technology brings to the surface, not always with benign consequences.”[5]

Finally, the Church must understand and engage with the reality of the New Media, namely that it is a two-way conversation:

“Young people, for instance, think of themselves as creators of content, not merely consumers of it. Technology, in essence, gives them a voice and fuels their search for calling. Whether or not you welcome it, technology creates an entirely new calculus of influence and independence. The stewardship of technology as a force for good in culture is an important role for technologists, entrepreneurs, educators, and Christian leaders.”[6]

Local Churches must be equipped to deal with the ethical issues that the New Media bring.  While Media are amoral, they do not exist in a vacuum.  The medium, the agent of transference, not only conveys the message, but it works to shape it.  Ideas are nameless, substance less notions until they are given shape and definition by language.  Language in some sense is modified by the medium through which it is expressed.  The Church, as Christ’s Bride and Witness must be wary of her message being unnecessarily warped by the media she uses to express it.  Just because media are amoral does not mean that they are always necessarily right to use.  Likewise, just because various media are used in terrible, awful and sinful ways does not mean it is wrong to use those same media in right ways.  But one thing is certain: the Church is most assuredly called to remove herself from any naïveté regarding the New Media.  She is called by Her Lord to communicate in a way that honors Him and brings Him renown.  Her use (or misuse) of media will directly affect her ability to do that.

Conclusion

In the world of the Information Age, where communication and the New Media are kings, ethical issues abound.  Questions of privacy, idolatry, predation, stewardship, slander and libel are daily conundrums for millions of bloggers, Facebookers and Twitterers every day.  In a world of rapid change, where a massive paradigm shift has occurred in the way people communicate with one another and process information, confusion and fear can often rule the day.

Yet, God has not left the Christian in the dark.  The light of Scriptural truth shines and the Christian is provided with clear teachings and encouragements for how to rightly, morally and ethically communicate to other Christians and to the world around.  Whether it’s in the local church or on in the world of tweets and posts, blogs and vlogs, the Christian is called to rightly live and communicate, making the best use of the time, for the good of all men and for the glory of God.

[1] Barna Group, May 26, 2008, “Barna Technology Study: Social Networking, Online Entertainment And Church Podcasts,” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/14-media/36-barna-technology-study-social-networking-online-entertainment-and-church-podcasts/ (accessed April 27, 2010).

[2] Barna Group, May 26, 2008, “Barna Technology Study: Social Networking, Online Entertainment And Church Podcasts,” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/14-media/36-barna-technology-study-social-networking-online-entertainment-and-church-podcasts/ (accessed April 27, 2010).

[3] Barna Group, May 26, 2008, “Barna Technology Study: Social Networking, Online Entertainment And Church Podcasts,” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/14-media/36-barna-technology-study-social-networking-online-entertainment-and-church-podcasts/ (accessed April 27, 2010).

[4] M.K. Smith, “Community,” in the encyclopedia of informal education,  ed, http://www.infed.org/community/community.htm. (accessed April 27, 2010).

[5] Barna Group, May 26, 2008, “Barna Technology Study: Social Networking, Online Entertainment And Church Podcasts,” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/14-media/36-barna-technology-study-social-networking-online-entertainment-and-church-podcasts/ (accessed April 27, 2010).

[6] Barna Group, May 26, 2008, “Barna Technology Study: Social Networking, Online Entertainment And Church Podcasts,” http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/14-media/36-barna-technology-study-social-networking-online-entertainment-and-church-podcasts/ (accessed April 27, 2010).

Our religion ought to inform our politics as it ought to inform our whole life. There are some political issues we should not be silent on (abortion comes to mind). However, the “culture wars” in America have duped Christians into enlisting in causes that have nothing to do with their religion. Worse still, it makes our religion into simply one aspect of a larger subsuming culture complete with its own schools, dress, music, television shows and diets. It doesn’t take a large jump before those things all become of similar importance, and Christ takes his place in the pantheon between Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck (or Obama and Al Franken, as the case may be). It’s the devil’s old bait-and-switch. Christ didn’t have a problem with the Pharisee’s actual righteousness, he had a problem with assuming that adherence to arbitrary cultural conventions was righteousness. Christianity is not a culture, it is trans-cultural. When we engage in evangelism, it should not be to make people more like us, but rather more like Christ.

- Justin Longacre, “Five Things“

“Church should not be a place for people who can’t make an honest living to pretend they’re bigwig business executives.”

- “Fearsome Tycoon”, From The Boar’s Head Tavern

Sermon Poetry, 24 January 2010
Sermon Title – “Christian Unity and the Pastoral Ministry – #3”
Sermon Text – Ephesians 4:12-16
Preacher – Pastor Larry Vincent

The Church of Jesus Christ is held and kept by Grace and Love
She’s made alive through Jesus’ death and washed by Jesus’ blood
She’s called to live her life in Christ and die as Jesus died
The Word of God Creation works and gives the Church her life

The Word proclaimed, the Word as known, enlivens her to grow
She studies what her King has said, Berean Christans all
Submitting to her Holy King, her one and holy Head
She worships Christ, her Risen Lord, believing what He said

As pastors preach and tell the Word, to preaching Christ they’re held
They dare not go beyond the scope provided by the Word
Proclaimers are provided by our Lord for Christian’s good
Yet they are held, submitting to, our Savior and our Lord

I often wonder why I want to preach the Word of God
Such danger is within the role, a journey rough to trod
Yet I’m compelled to stay the course until His will is known
Lord give me strength to know Your Truth to someday preach Your Son

Sermon Poetry – “Lord Keep Me from Deficiency”
Preacher – Pastor Tom Ascol

Lord keep me from deficiency
Help me to preach theology
To tell of you, my Father Sweet
My kind and sovereign King

Lord keep me from deficiency
From apastoral mockery
In loving all your children sweet
And shepherding Your Flock

Lord keep me from deficiency
And help me in expositing
To preach Your Truth with clarity
A herald of Your Word

Lord keep me from deficiency
So sinners might your glory see
In Christ the Light our hearts are free
In Christ our souls are saved

Lord keep me from deficiency
With praying, reading, listening
To know Your Word, to know Your sheep
So I can preach the Word

There is no easy way to lead a church to understand, embrace and practice church discipline. It is hard work and pastors must not allow themselves to become paralyzed by the myth that “there’s got to be an easier way.” There isn’t. If we are going to be faithful shepherds then we must roll up our sleeves, dig in our heels and do the hard work of lovingly, prayerfully and persistently leading our churches to obey Christ at this point. It is not easy, but it is worth it because God will be glorified, the church will be strengthened in holiness and mission and individual believers will be helped. … Many of the good things in ministry occur over long periods of time. Though God may well lead a pastor not to spend the better part of his life in one church, there are wonderful blessings that come from doing so.

- Tom Ascol (http://www.founders.org/blog/2009/07/long-journey-in-church-discipline-pt-3.html)

“Ni ceart go cur le cheile” – “There is no strength without unity”

There is a scene in Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life” where the evil villains, the Grasshoppers, are chilling under their sombrero hangout when Hopper, the gang’s ringleader, hears grumbling about going back to Ant Island to gather “The Offering” from the puny ants.  Hopper jumps over to the bar in typical grasshopper fashion, grabs a seed from their large seed dispenser at the Grasshopper bar and throws it at the complaining party.  He asks the guilty one if it hurt (it did not), throws another seed (“are you kidding” being the response) and then releases the whole bunch of heavy seeds onto the whiner, crushing him.  The moral of this story?  “There was that ant who stood up to me … if one ant stands up, they all might stand up”.

Just as that one seed did not hurt the grasshopper, so Flick (that one brave ant) did not stand a chance alone.  Yet, Hopper knew something profound: if those thousands of ants in that colony decided to stand together, as one, unified (which they finally did) then his evil reign of terror would end (which it did).

Unity is a powerful thing.  One strand of string is easily broken, but if you were to twist dozens of strings together into a rope, that string would suddenly be much more difficult to break.  One vote is hardly enough to swing an election (usually), but if you get a majority to vote the same way, as one unified voice, then democratic power can and does assert itself.  Yet, unity is not simply about numbers.  There might be thousands of soldiers fighting in a battle, but if those thousands are not fighting for a unified purpose or goal and do not fight as one, then they are easily dispatched.

Just as unity is vital for ants, strings, voters and warriors, it is so for followers of Jesus as well.  We are one body, in Christ.  The Church, Jesus’ Bride, is not made up of a bunch of self-autonomous parts.  We are joined and knit together, a unified, redeemed Body.  Yet, “unity” can be, and in our pluralisticly philosophical and cultural milieu, often is, misleading.  Believers in Christ cannot be unified with those who deny the insanely radical and thoroughly exclusive nature of Christ and the Cross.  Believers in Jesus cannot be unified with those who call Jesus a god but who do not ultimately bow their collective knee in abject submission to the Lamb.  Believers in the very Son of God cannot be united with those who deny the everlasting Love of Jesus and Grace of God.  Yet, with true believers and followers of Jesus, the Christian IS unified and this unity finds it strength not in the collective might of those unified but in the One who is the Great Unifier.  This unity and strength is for His Glory and for our Good.  It is not just strong, it is everlasting.

It seems that true, persistent, plodding faithfulness is perhaps the hardest part of the Christian walk.

It is fairly easy to be flashy and it is easy to exert a great amount of energy for a small amount of time. But to be faithful and constant … that is hard. Patience and persistence is required for such faithfulness. To be faithful means constant warfare with the flesh. For the faithful man or woman there are no breaks, no rests, and no separation from the grind. The faithful Christian is a plodder. She is content in doing what she is called to do, even if she spends her whole life in relative obscurity. The faithful Christian does not mind doing the dirty work. In fact, he puts all of his effort into the task, knowing that there will be few who notice. The faithful Christian will be told at the end of things “Well done, good and faithful servant”. The faithful Christian is a slave and he rejoices in it. She is a servant and in her servitude she seeks the honor of God. He knows he might never be noticed, but he is ok with that possibility and general reality.

He is the pastor of a small congregation in the Texas Hill Country. The church he serves in has never had much numerical growth. He has never had many converts. He is not flashy and he is not real relevant. He is faithful in the little things and faithful in the big things he is given responsibility for.

She is the mother of ten believing children and currently the grandmother of fifteen. She was a beautiful woman in the flower of youth but now her body is wrinkled, bent and worn out. She is not flashy and she’s not real sexy. She is faithful in the little things and faithful in the big things she is given responsibility for.

This man might not be successful in the eyes of the world (or even the eyes of Evangelicals!), but in the Lord’s eyes this man is honored. This woman might not be beautiful in the eyes of the world, but in God’s eyes this woman exhibits true human beauty.

Are we content with faithfulness to God, or are we in such pursuit of fame, success, relevance and beauty that we lost sight of the one by whom and for whom all things exist?

Rediscovering Paul – An Introduction to His World, Letters and Theology. By David B. Capes, Rodney Reeves and E. Randolph Richards. InterVarsity Press, 2007.
329 pages. Hardback.

“Rediscovering Paul”, a book written by David B. Capes, Rodney Reeves and E. Randolph Richards is (for the most part) a successful attempt to provide an introductory text that gives a fair overview of Paul, his writings and his theology; giving special consideration to those topics in light of Paul’s world as he lived it. (pgs. 15-16)

Particularly, the authors strive to present a Paul that in many respects runs contrary to the preconceived notions of the students whom they teach. All three are deans of respected Universities in the Bible Belt, and all combat “Western”, Americanized misguided perceptions of Paul and his letters.

These preconceived notions of Paul (presumably the notions of the authors’ students) are at the forefront of the authors’ minds as they explore who Paul really was. For instance, one of the authors states that as he thought about who Paul was, he “…began to question if my Western, domesticated, middle-class perception of Paul was the real Paul. Had my culture superimposed its values over the biblical Paul? (p. 14)”. In some respects, this statement smacks of the same tired critiques of “the West” that have recently been offered up by those in the Emergent Movement. Yet perhaps such critiques are needed, especially those directed at church-goers.

It must be said that all three of the authors are obviously well-read and well-studied. To their credit, they have learned the ideas and writings of men throughout church history whom they disagree with, yet they present the material in a fair and thoughtful way. In the chapter entitled “Paul’s Conversion, Call and Chronology”, the authors give a substantial amount of thought and ink to dealing with the “New Perspective on Paul” contention that Paul’s “conversion” was not along the lines of the traditional Lutheran type of salvific conversion, but rather it was more along the lines of a re-focusing of his “Jewishness” to include the Gentiles as well. While the authors seem to disagree with the “New Perspective”, they do so in a balanced and somewhat refreshing way (pgs. 90-94).

Additionally, the authors do a fair job of defending the primary issues of Christian Orthodoxy. In defending the creation of the Canon, they state that “Sometimes it is necessary to question the ‘establishment,’ as Martin Luther did; however, the verdict even on Luther’s actions was determined by the church over an extended period of time. (p. 293)”. They perceptively ask the rhetorical question: “Why do we think we have the right to question a decision accepted by millions of Christians worldwide over two thousand years? (p. 293)”. While the authors are not shy about asking some hard questions of themselves, their students and their readers, they do well to not go too far and leave the walls of Orthodoxy itself.

Yet, “Rediscovering Paul” is not without its weaknesses. While the authors aimed to have a “…finished product that was relatively seamless, speaking with one voice while still drawing on the expertise of each author (p. 16)”, the book does not read as seamlessly as the authors would have liked. In the discussion on the book of Romans, much effort is given to explaining chapters one through eleven, yet chapters twelve through sixteen, the “application” part of Romans, is only given a terse two page summary. This abruptness is somewhat disconcerting, especially when viewed in concert with the long (and somewhat tedious) discussion regarding letter writing in Paul’s day (pgs. 54-82).

While many will find things in this book that will challenge them, make them uncomfortable and perhaps even anger them; the authors deal with the question of who Paul was with a necessary honesty and openness that their students and their readers would do well to follow.

My previous posts in this series are below: Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 I finished Part 3 in this series with a basic question: how is this missions model incarnational? To explain, the normal and traditional way of doing missions (at least according to this model) is shown below: Usually, the missionary is trained and mentored in the sending context and sent out into the rest of the world to evangelize, and for the church-planter, to plant churches. But, what if the model took on this shape: Notice in what context the whole model exists. Within this model the missionaries leave their home churches, go to their mission field and serve, are trained, are sent and plant planting churches within the indigenous context.

As many have noted, the number of “unreached” people groups have been dropping precipitously. This is a wonderful development and we should thank God for it. But, we dare not forget the scores of lost men who remain in groups that have been “reached”. We are called by God to make disciples among all the nations and all of the people groups, not just among those who are unreached. A direct (and obvious) corollary of the reality of there being fewer unreached people groups is the reality of there being more reached people groups. Because of this reality, there are more indigenous churches to serve in, to be trained in, and to be sent by to plant more indigenous, Bible believing, Gospel-Saturated planting churches.

Consider what a profound example of incarnational humility this can be. If you are a man called of God to someday pastor, it will be a great statement of trust in Christ and submission to others to, in faith, immerse yourself in another culture and serve in a local church in that culture. You then are trained by “indigenous” pastors and are sent by indigenous churches to plant indigenous churches that themselves plant indigenous churches that plant indigenous (or glory be to God, foreign) churches. You’ll more fully learn how to live with people of another culture. You’ll more fully learn how they think, how they live, how they worship and how they serve. You’ll be trained by men who know their culture, to serve others in that culture. You allow and encourage the indigenous church to take ownership and responsibility to plant indigenous churches that otherwise would have been planted by your home-culture church. Is this not a wonderful example of Christian unity? Is this not a wonderful example of the Biblical diversity that is found in the love of Christ? Is this not a profound declaration of the priority of our Heavenly Citizenship over the citizenship of our native land?

What are the full implication and ramifications of this model? Honestly, I have no way of knowing. I would pray that it would foster a passion for the glory of Christ in our unity as children of the Father. I pray it would encourage humility and discourage the arrogance that is found all too often in the saints. I pray that it would encourage us to preach Christ to all peoples. We must remember that every generation presents us with a new crop of souls to be harvested. May we ever submit to the Will of God and seek his glory, by the Son’s Grace and through the sanctifying work of the Spirit.

In review, here is the suggested model for living and serving incarnationally in missionary church planting.

In Scripture (1 Peter 3:8-9, Ephesians 4:1-6) Christians are called to submit to and live in deference one to another. In Hebrews 13:17 Christians are called to submit to their leadership (within Christian mutual submission). Being a churchman can and should be a very humbling experience. As much as the human being desires absolute autonomy, the simple truth is that in Christ we are unified to each other. In Christ we are to submit to one another with humble selflessness, giving deference to each other. If a man cannot do this in a local church, how can he have any reasonable expectation of asking men and women to follow his leadership as an undershepherd? How can a pastor hope to lead like Christ unless he can first be led? There is so much emphasis in evangelicalism on being a good leader that many people forget that in order to be a Christ-like servant-leader you must be a Christ-like servant-follower. Pastors are servants, under-shepherds, slaves and messenger boys, called of God to minister to Christ’s Body.

It is within this context that certain men are called out of the body of believers into roles of leadership. Yet, this does not necessarily happen instantaneously. In the examples of Barnabus and his protégé Paul, and then in Paul and his protégés Timothy and Titus, there is a very strong element of pastoral mentoring that occurs.  In this modern era of Christianity, most of the heart of pastoral training is expected to be completed at a seminary. There is on the job training that happens, as with any job, but usually, to be a pastor means that one must go to seminary, get a degree of some kind, and then wait for one’s resume to be picked up by a church somewhere who will then call the candidate in question and examine him. Where is the ownership in the local church for a man’s training and development in such a system?  Seminaries are not bad institutions. There is a lot of good that come out of seminaries, as well as bad. The problem comes when the local church abdicates her responsibility and ability to train her own pastors, missionaries and missionary church planters by farming out the work to the plethora of available para-church organizations and denominational institutions.

Once the pastors or missionaries or missionary church planters are trained and ready, who sends them? Should the local church rely solely on Missions agencies and church planting networks to send their men and women to the field? I think the example of the Holy Spirit through the Church in Antioch is a hearty no! It was the local church in Antioch that sent Barnabas and Paul. The local church must send out her own! This duty, calling and privilege is not the purview of the missions agency or the denomination. Are missions agencies or denominational missions wings bad? Again, not necessarily. Problems arise when local churches renege on their responsibilities. The church must train her people and she must take ownership of her calling before God to send them out among the nations.

Finally, as men and women are sent around the world to spread the good news of the Gospel, it must be done within the realm of planting churches that plant churches. Thus we see the organic nature of the Church: by God’s Grace, in Christ and through the Spirit’s power, churches reproduce. Interestingly enough, the three previous elements of this model happen at this point. One the one hand serving, teaching/learning and sending comes into play with this fourth element; but at the same time, the planted church is learning how to serve, teach/learn and send. In order for a church to be able to plant churches there should be a corporately similar trajectory of growth for the church as their should have been for the missionary church planter.

There are two additional aspects of this model that should be explained.

First, each subsequent element of the model is within the context of the previous element. Every Christian should be a part of a local church, that’s the large context of the model. Yet not everyone will be mentored to be a pastor/church planter. Even fewer will actually become pastors and even fewer will actually become church planters. Of the church planters and the churches that will be planted, even fewer churches will be planted that actually go out themselves to plant churches.

Secondly, every subsequent element of the model envelopes a larger and larger focus. For the first element, the focus is within the local church. As mentorship progresses to being sent the focus grows, finally culminating with an ever-expanding reality of planted churches planting churches for the purpose of worshiping God and evangelizing and discipling of all the peoples in all the lands throughout all the world.

A potentially obvious question is perhaps apparent. How is this incarnational?  I’ll answer that with the last and final post.

There are scores of ideas in our contemporary milieu of evangelical thought on how to best accomplish our Christ-given Great Commission Responsibility. There are many various and sundry models, concepts and strategies that are used to bring the message of Jesus to a lost and dying world in ways that are missional, confrontational, contextual, relevant and incarnational.

All of these ideas and means can be well and good, so long as they are within the realm of biblical thought, principles and orthodoxy. Is that not the rub? Are we biblical in our methodologies or do we evangelize according to our own abilities and devices? Our evangelical strategies and missiological frameworks must be examined in light of and submitted to the Truth of God’s Written Will and Word. As such, please permit me to submit to you a biblical model of incarnational missionary church planting, based on the example of the early Church as led by the Holy Spirit.

As much as we read and hear about the epistle writer Paul, it is very enlightening to understand how Paul became the Missionary Church Planter we read about in the book of Acts and in his letters. After his Damascus Road Experience, Paul does not automatically seek to become a missionary church planter.  After a time of learning from the Lord in Arabia, he sought to be with the disciples, in Damascus and Jerusalem. He recognized the need for the community and accountability that a group of like-minded believers can provide for each other. Then, when the need arose, Barnabas went to Tarsus (where Paul had been sent by the disciples in Jerusalem, because he had severely angered the Hellenists with his bold and biblical preaching), found Paul, brought him back to Antioch and together they ministered to the saints. The Scripture then says that in those days a prophecy was made concerning a famine in Jerusalem, so that the church in Antioch, taking responsibility to help their brothers in Jerusalem, sends Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem with relief. We’re then told in Acts 13:1-3 that while the disciples in Antioch were worshipping and fasting that the Holy Spirit sets Barnabas and Paul apart for the work that was prepared for them to do. And, in obedience, the local church in Antioch sends Barnabas and Paul on God’s mission.

It is in the middle of Acts 13 that we see a major shift in Paul’s Ministry. He takes the lead. The student had concluded that stage of his education and training and took the leadership responsibility of the missionary team. From that point on in Acts, we see Paul planting churches in Ephesus, Corinth, Galatia, Thessalonica, and Philippi. It is important to note that Paul planted churches in major cities. It is from these urban centers that the indigenous churches were planted and from the urban areas that these planting churches planted.

In addition to Paul, we see this same example of serving/submitting, teaching/learning, sending and planting in Timothy and Titus. Both were men discipled under the ministry of Paul, both were trained in some measure by Paul and both then had the responsibility of discipling, mentoring and leading other men and churches.

Based off of the examples of Barnabas, Paul, Timothy and Titus, I would submit to you the following model for Biblical Missionary Church Planting:

In the next post in this series, I’ll explain what each element of the model means and why it matters.

There has been a good amount of discussion in recent weeks and months within Baptist circles on how exactly we are to “do church” and “do worship” and “do missions”.  As such, there is a great deal of healthy suspicion of ideas that are new and different.  Much of the concern is justified.  If we are worshiping or witnessing or evangelizing in a way that supersedes the truths of Scripture, or if we are not trusting God to communicate, through His Word, but are rather trusting ourselves and our own clever creativity, then we have some real soul-searching to do.

My question then is this: Is it not possible that our traditional ways of doing evangelism and worship and Christian living should also be subjected to the same scrutiny?  If we sang fewer songs or prayed at different parts of the service or ceased having a Baptist Altar Call, would our members think that we had left a Biblically prescribed mode of worship?  If we stopped handing out tracts or going door-to-door, would our people believe that we had stopped evangelizing biblically?  Has our understanding of the Bible become so wed to our traditions that anything besides those traditions smacks to us of heresy (or at least the seeds of it)?

Put another way, is it not possible that our insistence on doing church and evangelism “biblically” is really an attempt to communicate the Bible to our church members (in good standing) in ways that they will understand?  And is this communication of a nature such that we are practicing the same distrust and disdain for the power and efficacy of the Scriptures (and dare I say, of the Gospel itself) that we suspect and charge the “new” and the “different” with?

Are we really looking to live biblically as Christians, or is our understanding of Christ, the Church and how we relate to both fundamentally dependent on our own understanding?  Are we submitting to Christ and to His Word, or are we judging others by our faulty standards, traditions, restraints, constraints and assumptions?

He is present in and among his people. He guards and protects and preserves the church. He is never, ever absent! No service is conducted at which he fails to show up. No meal is served for which he does not sit down. No sermon is preached that he does not evaluate. No sin is committed of which is he unaware. No individual enters an auditorium of whom he fails to take notice. No tear is shed that escapes his eye. No pain is felt that his heart does not share. No decision is made that he does not judge. No song is sung that he does not hear.

How dare we build our programs and prepare our messages and hire our staffs and discipline our members as if he were distant or unaware of every thought, impulse, word, or decision! How dare we cast a vision or write a doctrinal statement or organize a worship service as if the Lord whose church it is were indifferent to it all!

Do you care “What Christ thinks of the Church”? Or are you more attuned to the latest trend in worship, the most innovative strategy for growth, the most “relevant” way in which to engage the surrounding culture? Yes, Jesus cares deeply about worship. Of course he wants the church to grow. And he longs to see the culture redeemed for his own glory. All the more reason to pray that God might quicken us to read and heed the “words” of Christ to the church in Ephesus, then, and to the church now, whatever its name, denomination, or size. It obviously matters to him. Ought it not to us as well?

-Sam Storms

The difference that people are longing for, in other words, is a difference in being, not doing.

So while many church “strategists” are locating reformation and revival in structural renovation, we must remember that the deepest needs of the Church today are spiritual, not structural. And yet, we are told that the Church’s cultural relevance depends ultimately on its ability to keep up with the changing structures, on its ability to do church differently.

I have good news for all of us who are becoming weary of this type of pressure: We don’t have to keep up the way we think we do; the world doesn’t want us to! So how do we compete? We don’t! We must come to see that God has established His Church as an “alternative society”, not to compete with this world, but rather to offer a home to those who realize the homelessness of life in this world without Him. It is the calling and the privilege of the Church to be “against the world for the world”. We should be encouraged and challenged by the historical reminder that the Church has always served the world best when it has been most counter cultural, most distinctively different from the world.

- Tullian Tchividjian