Brett Tilford

It’s fascinating that our church membership courses tend to center around beliefs, core values, and mission statements.

What if a church membership sheet read like the following:

If you own more than one coat, it must be given away.

If you own more than one car it must be loaned out or given away.

If you have a house with extra rooms they must be given to the homeless.

If you have extra money it must be given to charity.

Sign here: ___________________.

Of course, I wouldn’t be allowed to attend, but still, that would be pretty kick-a.

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P.S. Inspiration for this post came from a talk by Pete Rollins.

There’s something deflating about being reduced to an “ism”.

Question: “Doesn’t it make sense that our acts of obedience play a key role in our salvation? I mean I still believe in the grace of God – it’s just that I wonder sometimes if I have a bigger part to play.”

Answer: “Oh, that’s nothing more than 5th century Pelagianism.” a friend replies.

Question: “Sometimes I look around at the world and it seems so devoid of God. It’s just things, physical things that I can touch and feel. Doesn’t it make sense that this is all there is – maybe there’s nothing beyond the material world?”

Answer: “Oh that’s just secular atheism. It’s intellectually dressed up rebellion against God.”

Question: “I’ve had these moments throughout my life when I feel like I’ve experienced something other than myself. I get this feeling when I walk into an old church, maybe it’s just nostalgia from my youth but I swear I feel like there’s something real and beautiful about it all.”

Answer: “Oh that’s just basic theism. It’s for people who need a crutch in life – need some big ‘other’ to look out for them.”

Question: “Don’t you think the Bible really could be this perfect revelation from God? Every time I open it’s pages I get something out of it. I think it may be the best book ever written.”

Answer: “That sounds like a key tenet of biblical fundamentalism and it’s naive at best. The Bible is riddled with historical errors, contradictions, and enough barbaric passages to make your head spin. If God were real, he would do better.”

Question: “Sometimes I read two bible passages and they seem to contradict each other. For Easter I read the 4 resurrection accounts and I realized that they were incredibly different. The other day I read a passage where God mandated the genocide of an entire people group. Sometimes I wonder if the people who wrote the Bible had their own agendas.  What if it really isn’t this perfect word delivered straight from the hand of God? How do I know what the truth is?”

Answer: “Those sound like the questions of classical theological liberalism. It’s for people who aren’t willing to bow the knee to Christ and submit to his revealed Word. Also, all liberal churches are dying, so it’s kind of for losers.”

Question: “I believe in the idea of truth but I’m not sure it’s as easily grasped as the radio preachers tell me it is. Like, what if all we have are our interpretations and temporal understandings of truth? So even if capital “T” Truth exists – we’ll never be able to fully grasp it in this life? What if what I think of as “the truth” is really just “my truth”? In other words, what if there is no absolute truth?”

Answer: “That’s relativism and it’s what’s wrong with America. Since you think you’re so smart let me ask you a question. Do you think you’re statement “there is no absolute truth” is true? Well if you do you’re an idiot because it’s a self defeating argument.”

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This is what we do with people’s questions. We reduce them to “ism’s”. This allows us to not take them seriously, to write them off as brainless so-and-so’s – who wouldn’t know reality if it hit them in the face. It makes us feel superior and safe.

This is what’s wrong with our churches. We have no place for questions and honest dialogue.

This is what’s wrong with our politics. We spend all our time shouting and little to no time listening.

You know what it tells me? We don’t really love God, truth,  justice, or this great Country as much as we tell ourselves.

What we care about is being right.

In the late 1980’s a phenomena called the “Seeker Sensitive” movement emerged. The idea driving it was that for many church was a boring, strange, and often relationally cold place – and as such, wasn’t the most conducive to new comers. This led to a re-imagining of the church: one in which pews were replaced with chairs, organs with guitars, suits with blue jeans, communion with skits, liturgy with a 6 week sermon series – in short: tradition was replaced by innovation.

This is a movement that’s been hammered by many. It’s been labeled “sinner sensitive”, chastised for catering to worldly people and for refusing to preach the “truth” in a straight forward manner. Normally when people use the word “seeker sensitive” to describe a church it’s a put down – not a compliment.

Although I think there is much to critique about the movement (as there is with every attempt to understand and follow God faithfully) at the end of the day I think the term seeker sensitive is a compliment. In fact, I think the term sinner sensitive is a compliment. If I were to start a church I’d work this phrase into our bylaws somehow – maybe even t-shirts for the staff.

WE’RE SINNER SENSITIVE!

Why? Because right at the very heart of Christianity – in the example of Jesus – you have a man who was sinner sensitive. One of the scandals of his ministry is that he was a friend of the most vile types of people: hoars, drunkards, etc. When everyone else judged and rejected them – treating them more like background scenery than real human beings – he gave them dignity and respect. That’s wonderful.

So if we’re going to critique the movement – let’s not take them to task for being sensitive and kind to sinners. It reminds me too much of Jesus.

I took a course in highschool called WorldViews of the Western World. It was basically my entire high school education minus math and science. If I had to condense what that 3 year course was about it would be this: we read books, wrote papers, and then got together once a week and argued. It was a damn good curriculum and I’m forever grateful to my teacher and classmates for embarking on that journey with me. Granted, the course had a strong conservative evangelical homeschool slant to it, but reading books like the following cut through that and had a profound impact on me.

• Dante’s Divine Comedy’s: Hell, Purgatory, & Paradise
• Plato’s Republic
• Paradise Lost
• Sinners in the hands of an Angry God
• The Communist Manifesto
• The Law
• Animal Farm
• Old Man and the Sea
• That Hideous Strength
• The Illiad, Odyssey, & Aienid
• The Plague
• City of God
• A Tale of Two Cities
• Sophie’s World
• Walden Two

The value I gleaned from this was simple: read the original works.

Textbooks are fine as an introduction, but nothing beats reading the original works of the best minds humanity has to offer.

Our tendency is to spend our free time interacting with the ideas of people who will not challenge, goad, provoke, or grow us. We read small books written by small minds.

Here’s my challenge: take the next year and interact with the best thinkers of the past and present – even those you’d disagree with, heck, especially those that you think you’d disagree with. In other words, replace Max Lucado & Jon Bevere with John Calvin and N.T. Wright (add Karl Marx & Richard Dawkins for the brave). And as you read them, make sure that you have not only an eye to critique, but a heart to learn and a mind that loves truth, no matter where it’s found.

I think you’ll find your faith challenged and enriched.

P.S. If you’re a Christian leader then this isn’t optional.

Jesus said that where your money is, there will your heart be also. In other words, don’t listen to what someone says is important to them – check out their bank statement – that says it all.

I think people intuitively sense this and so a huge step for churches trying to rebuild trust with our culture is to become more transparent and generous financially. Churches should open their books and let people know where their money is going. Long gone are the days where we demand 10% of people’s income “because God said so.” Nope, you have to earn it now, otherwise it’s going to Charity Water or some other organization that we actually trust.

The key word here is trust. Churches need to rebuild trust with their communities and the culture at large. This is where generosity comes in. We’re looking for churches that exist for those in need, and who give till it hurts. Churches that we trust aren’t interested in a new BMW for the pastor or iMac computers for their lobby as much as feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. Consumerism is a sickness we’re trying to escape and it’s incredibly disheartening to find churches aligning themselves more with the practices of Wall Street then a Jesus who spent his life on behalf of the poor and the needy. The church at it’s best is a community that gives the finger to Mammon.

Deeply committed to a theology of the weakness of God with a focus on the sufferings of Christ

Intuitively it makes sense to focus on the power of God. He is God after all. That’s why I think it’s interesting that the Gospels, with their centrality on the cross, present the somewhat paradoxical idea that the love of God isn’t best expressed in displays of awe inspiring power, but in sacrifice and weakness. Sometimes God loses. Love is fragile; easily crushed by the powers that be. In a world where power and violence is constantly on display via various media outlets (t.v., radio, internet) I think this is a timely message that resonates deeply with people.

Intent on encouraging people to read weird books (including theology) with the hope that it derails and changes them

In so many ways books saved my faith. People tend to think of books as dry and dusty things – full of cobwebs. In the same way we tend to think that “intellectualizing” the faith will make it a dry and dead thing as well – a religion confined to dusty books and scholars pens. I don’t view books like that. Books are simply a medium to convey ideas, and ideas are the absolute lifeblood of any faith. The minute we stop thinking, writing and arguing about our faith is the moment it’s no longer relevant in our lives. There was a time when I thought most everything about my faith had been figured out by pastors and theologians before me. Looking back that was the day my faith started to whither. It took writers like Nietzche, N.T. Wright, and Pete Rollins to dig fresh the spring of ideas that could give life to a vibrant faith in me again.

Focused on our actual material existence: our eating, drinking, walking around, playing, loving, laughing life (Romans 12:1)

“I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my brother and I found all three.” – Anonymous

I think too often our faith get’s lost in our search for a God “out there”. He’s in “heaven” or somewhere “spiritual” – just beyond our reach. If only we’d pray a little harder, listen a little closer, or raise our hands a little higher we’d find Him. This can easily veer towards a striving for a God who remains silent despite our best efforts.

On the other hand we can lose ourselves in endless introspection. God is somewhere in our souls – the core of who we are. This ties in with the “Jesus is in my heart” type of thinking. I need only to peer inside myself and then I’ll find God. If only I could clear this sin out of my life then I’d be in touch with myself (and by extension God) again. “Oh wicked man that I am.” The worst is when Christian “small groups” catch this disease. You go around the circle and all we can talk about is our latest sin and how we can’t feel God anymore. It’s group therapy and it’s a faith that believes this is the way to God – looking inside ourselves. I tried this for a decade and eventually couldn’t take how obsessed with myself and my feelings I was.

“I sought my brother and I found all three.” This has been so true for me. I love the idea that God is love and that he’s best experienced in those magical moments when we stumble into generosity, kindness, and goodness (e.g. love – which transcends any definition). My faith has meaning only to the degree that I become the place where God manifests in the world, which is anywhere that love is springing up. The beauty of this is that suddenly my entire life can be riddled with God (in a uniquely Christian sense), whether I philosophically agree that a supreme being (G-D) is really “up there somewhere” or not. It also infuses our every day lives with beauty and meaning because suddenly God and faith is tangible. It’s seen in everything from my ethics at work, to how I interact with the bum on the street, to what motivates my politics. My actual life is no longer divorced from my faith. I don’t need to take a “time out” for God and go and meditate over my lunch break (of course if you enjoy that then by all means indulge yourself!) because my entire day is saturated with the divine – at least to the degree that I’m loving the people around me.

More to come on this…

As my previous post explained, a group of people from our faith community visited the contemporary service of The Church of the Incarnation (an Episcopal Church in Dallas) for the purpose of experiencing something outside of our own tradition. Here are a handful of my takeaways from our time there.

First, they’ve done a fantastic job of modernizing certain elements of the service without sacrificing the “high church” feel that people connect with so deeply. The pastor still wore a clerical collar but his sleeves were rolled up. They had contemporary music but it was still pretty contemplative and not rock-bandish. Think less Led Zeppelin and more Bon Iver. We met in a beautiful chapel that looked about 100 years old but the sound and visual systems were modernized and fit well within the space. The Eucharist was celebrated in the traditional manner (at least as far as I could tell – it seemed very similar to the Roman Catholic service I attended a few months back) but the pastor explained that instructions would be on the tv screens for visitors who were unfamiliar with their normal procedure. Again, all the stuff you love without the items that make you cringe (i.e. is the pipe organ really the only instrument approved by Christ himself and omg should I take communion and if so how on earth would I go about doing that).

Second, the culture seemed more laid back than the conservative/charismatic culture I’m accustomed to. We’re all about “pressing into God” and “being hungry, nay starving, for God” and “pursuing God.” The upside to this in the charismatic culture is that people take their faith very seriously. The downside is that it can get very exhausting. We’re never doing good enough. God is always just out of reach. Revival is just around the corner. The breakthrough is just one more week long fast away. “Come on people. Press in. Press in. We’re almost there. Can you hear the whisper of the wind of the spirit? It’s almost here. Just raise your hands a little higher. Just take your voice up one more octave. That’s it, we’re almost there.” Like I said exhausting.

At this service people seemed very comfortable to engage God in quiet and stillness. The music wasn’t overly loud. The pastor spoke in a relaxed manner. You never got the vibe from someone on stage that they were trying to pump you up. There was an energy in the room but it was focused and quiet – like the energy you feel when you’re trying to concentrate. Not an over-caffeinated energy. Not everyone in our group liked this vibe but I did.

One critique I had was that many of the songs were of the same contemporary worship genre that just feels so tired to me. I almost fell over when the band struck up “How Great Is Our God” however, the mandolin almost made up for it.

I want a church that isn’t…

So heavenly minded it’s no earthly good.

So earthly minded it’s no earthly good.

Afraid of doubt instead of seeing it as part of the human experience and as central to faith.

Obsessed with sin (thus stoking it’s desire) instead of helping us confront and move beyond it.

Interested in the spectacle of a miracle instead of becoming that miracle for others.

Focused on serving those who can return the favor.

So busy cutting at others that we forget to cut at ourselves (acknowledging our own violence and shortcomings).

Trying to sell us the snakeoil of a better life instead of teaching us to lay down our life.

Vying for power and labeling it “God’s blessing” rather than refusing it.

Busy hating enemies and loving friends instead of loving enemies and hating (confronting) friends.

As I mentioned a few days back I attend a small church that is quite lame but we love it.  One of the questions we’re wrestling with is how we grow numerically?  Right now we’re pretty limited by the space (we meet in a friend’s tiny living room) and by the number of quality small group leaders we can prod (bribe) into leading.  Right now we grow to about 30 people and then drop down to 15, then grow to 30 and drop down again, and again, and again, etc.

The way I see it we have two options.  1. We find a bigger space to meet.  2. We split into two groups.  I think we’ll probably end up going with option #1 for now but #2 is probably inevitable.  That makes me sad.  Growth is great but it also sucks.

Every Monday evening I attend a small church of people (roughly 20-30) attempting to follow Jesus together.  It’s pretty simple really.  We sing a few songs, someone shares on a topic of Christian spirituality, we break into even smaller groups to share on a more personal level, and then we leave.  It takes about 2 hours to go through this progression.  Josh and Mindie Runnels lead the group and being their friends we help out quite a bit.  I like it.

It’s amazing how hard it is to keep something simple though.  There’s always the temptation to do more and try to become more cool.  We aren’t very cool.  In fact I would argue alot of the times we’re very lame.  We aren’t the best at planning ahead and the electric piano we use for worship is very old and unpredictable.  However, I think we love each other most of the time.  For me that’s enough.

I remember about 10 years ago I sat around with a group of up and coming worship leaders and we dreamed of how church would look when we were adults.  We imagined people swinging from trapezes and fireworks during the sermon.

Who would have thought we’d be leading something so lame and loving it.