Bill Easums Observations

Folks, there is only one sermon you must preach Sunday and its about what happened today on Wall Street and the implications to our economy. The market dropped some 777 points (almost 10% of the dow) Over the past two months, many people lost upwards of 20-30% of their retirement and savings. If you are saving for your pension, it was hit hard today. If you want to have any credibility with the public you must address this issue. It is the most serious issue facing our world since the Great Depression

Here’s some of what they need to hear

First, they need to know the end of the world has not come.  This will have little effect on the everyday economics of our country. Business will go on. People will still buy. People who can afford to get credit will get it and people who can’t wont. Tell your people to look around Monday and see that the stores are still open and the world is still turning.

Second, they need to know that God is always a source of comfort when things dont feel comfortable especially if they are retired. These are the folks who will be hurt the most.

Third, they need to know you understand the situation and are addressing it.

If I were picking a text it would be “The love of money is the root of all evils.”  There are several culprits in this situation.

1. the wall street wheelers and dealers

2. the CEOs of major corps. who cooked their books

3. the governement for eliminating all of the regulations

4. the public for thinking the market can always go up and up

5. the press for blowing it entirely out of proportion

6. the politicians who voted based on how close a race they were in at the moment.

7. the people who bought more house they could afford.

All of these groups have pursued money at the expense of truth and honor and the public good.
I would stay away from the so-called bailout. Its too emotional and none of us are smart enough to know which is good. I favored the bailout as long as the CEOs were punished and the tax payers had some hope of recouping the money. but then what do i know. I think it is blown out of proportion unless someone or some corp needs a loan and doesn’t have good enough credit. then they shouldn’t get it anyway.

Wall street has long been an example of bogus books and shadowy figures and greedy characters. And what makes it worse is the politicians aren’t helping. Partisan politics will be the ruin of this great country (my editorial, I wouldn’t suggest using that)

Of course this could all be settled by Sunday. Even if it is, people will have lost part of their shirt and they are smart enough to know the problem is far from over. So stay alert and be ready to adjust your message at the drop of a hat.

Here is some podder for the sermon

 Greed is  one of the 7 deadly sins. if you are preaching on it you might want to brush up on the 7 deadly sins

This is from Wikipedia

Greed (or avarice, covetousness) is, like lust and gluttony, a sin of excess. However, greed (as seen by the church) is applied to the acquisition of wealth in particular. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that greed was “a sin against God, just as all mortal sins, in as much as man condemns things eternal for the sake of temporal things.” In Dante’s Purgatory, the penitents were bound and laid face down on the ground for having concentrated too much on earthly thoughts. “Avarice” is more of a blanket term that can describe many other examples of greedy behavior. These include disloyalty, deliberate betrayal, or treason,^{[citations needed]} especially for personal gain, for example through bribery . Scavenging and hoarding of materials or objects, theft and robbery, especially by means of violence, trickery, or manipulation of authority are all actions that may be inspired by greed. Such misdeeds can include simony, where one profits from soliciting goods within the actual confines of a church.

here is the url  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins

The past few weeks I have examined four of the five most significant conversations occuring today- Emergent, Incarnational, Organic, and Attractional/Incarnational. Today, let me talk about implications of the four of them together.

What’s at Stake in These Four Conversations  Over the past decade too much time and energy has been taken up by these conversations. Too many people are caught up in these conversations and seem to have no clue how damaging they can be to the future of Christianity.  I have no problem with the Incarnational, Organic, and Emergent movements being part of the ongoing conversation as long as we realize they are just one of the many voices in the midst of much larger and important conversation. I don’t feel they are the wave of the future and I worry about the affect they are having on the future of the institutional church. Anyone who buys wholeheartedly into their conversations will wind up with a much smaller field of ministry or leaving the institutional church altogether, or even worse, the Christian community. 

However, we should all be indebted to these folks for bringing to our attention so elegantly the fact that Western Christianity is nowhere near what Jesus had in mind when he sent his disciples out into the world to build his church.  We should be willing to concede that most of our churches are spiritually dead and are beyond revitalization or turn around.  Their only hope is resurrection. That is why I wrote A Second Resurrection.

We need to hear these folk. Moreover, we should be asking why they feel so passionate that much of Western Christianity is, at best irrelevant, and at its worse, a fraud.   I also have no problem with the Attractional/Incarnational folks as long as they realize that focusing primarily on the growth of their church isn’t the primary mission of the church. However, these are not the primary conversations in which we should be engaged. They all take our attention away from what should be the primary conversation of our time-what is the best way to expand the Kingdom of God on earth? 

So, let’s turn to another major player in this ongoing conversation- the one which should be occupying most of our time and energy.

Next week, The Reproductive/Multiplication Movement

Attractional/Incarnational Conversations 

We continue our conversation about the various conversations underway today. We have looked at the Emergent, Incarnational, Organic, and now the Attractional/Incarnational conversations.

During this time period, I have been having a month long dialogue with Tony Jones of Emergent Village and many of his friends. You might want to check that out. You can find Part One of this blog and then go to Part Two and Three on their blog.

There are two branches of the Attractional model. On the one hand there are those dying churches that focus primarily on taking care of their members within the institution. It has long been my contention that these churches ought to be closed or transitioned. So, I will not dwell on them. 

On the other hand there are those Attractional churches that are also Incarnational.  Most of these churches are growing. Some of the most notable voices for the Attractional/Incarnational model are Rick Rusaw, Eric Swanson, Bill Hybels, and Rick Warren, and Larry Osborne.

These folks realize the U.S. church is basically ineffective, that the world has changed, and that a biblical Christianity needs to be reestablished, but none feel as if the institutional church must be eliminated. All believe the church should be an institution that sends people out into the world to share the Good News to advance the Kingdom.  

These churches attract people to their worship to experience God. The attractional church evangelizes by sending people into the community and attracting people to its institution of worship. This combination is found in the vast majority of the effective churches in the West.  

So, here’s my question to the Attractional/Incarnational leaders. Are you listening to the Emergent and Incarnational and Organic voices since they are clearly showing up the fallacies of most Attractional churches? In one sense they are so correct - the day has come when the church needs to focus more on how to go to world more than on how to get people to come to the church. 

One of my partners, Bill Tenny-Brittian has a great post on his blog about the importance of numbers and measurements. Here is a short quote to get us started

“If there’s interest, we can talk about these more fully later, but let me conclude this post with a brief description of each of the Seven Key Indicators of Growth.”

It was always my practice to measure what was important to me each month. So at the beginning of each month I would stare at a group of charts that showed me the picture  of how well my church was doing at penetrating the culture and making disciples.

You would do well to read Bill T’s article. It’s a good one.

Bill
www.easumbandy.com

One of my partners, Bill Tenny-Brittian has just joined the conversation between Tony Jones and me. You can see it on his blog.  Also, I will be posting a response to Tony Jones Monday on Emergent village.

Bill Easum
www.easumbandy.com
bille@easumbandy.com

The Organic Conversations
The Organic Movement is a kissing cousin to the Incarnational movement and a distant cousin to the Emergent movement. Like the other two it doesn’t see as much of a need for the institutional church has had traditional Christianity. But unlike the Emergent movement it is more literal in its interpretation of Scripture and truth. Neil Cole has long been one of the leading voices for the organic church. In his view the house church is the primary form of church. I have no problem with this view because Cole doesn’t dismiss the institutional church. In fact, one of my partners, Bill Tenny-Brittian, has extensive roots in the house church movement. I see it as a kissing cousin to small groups that multiply.  However, a new voice on the scene is Frank Viola and his book (with Barna), Pagan Christianity. This book stands in direct opposition to the Emergent folks because it takes a more literal approach to the Scripture. His book documents the problems with the institutional church that functions more like a business than the living organism it was created to be. Pagan Christianity is not only a logical sequence to Barna’s recent book, Revolution, it also is an interesting and accurate account of the historic events that have shaped today’s counterfeit form of Christianity.  

Their major criticism of today’s church, other than it being totally non-biblical, is the passivity and the elitism of today’s Church. I agree the passivity and elitism of today’s church is deplorable and has to be addressed if Christianity is ever going be what Jesus wanted it to be. Every church leader ought to read this book and respond to its criticism of modern day Christianity.  Any positive movement away from these two sins of the church and this book has done its job.  Although the authors leave some wiggle room, the only really logical conclusion of their arguments is the end of the institutional church.  Whereas I agree the present form of Christianity isn’t biblical, I still question whether what they suggest can survive much less thrive within our context. Frank Viola’s Reimagining the Church is a logical sequel to his book Pagan Christianity. Like the former book, this one is a meticulous, interesting, disturbing look at the New Testament understanding of the early church.  What’s interesting is I agreed with much of Pagan Christianity but not with much of Reimagining the church. In this book Viola makes his true feelings known- the only legitimate form of Christianity is the house church. Toward the end of his book he compares the renewal of the institutional church to trying to repair a house whose foundation is cracked. 

Before giving my critique of his argument I need to say a couple of things. First, anyone who has followed my writings knows I have been a critic of most of the modern day forms of the institutional church for a long time. My books, Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers and Growing Spiritual Redwoods both point up the need for a more organic approach to the church, but without abandoning the institutional setting. I just don’t feel as if Christianity can reach its potential in an institutional and concert driven society without assuming some form of institution and large venue worship.

Second, we should all be endebted to Viola for his diligent and provocative work. Like the Emergents, Viola has revealed the naked truth – the emperor has no clothes.  Most of the practices of modern day Christianity, including our forms of church, are foreign to Scripture and are in many ways lethal to the development of the kingdom of God. We must hear his argument and apply the applicable implications without throwing the baby (institutional church) out with the bath water.  However, I find Viola’s basic conclusion about the institutional church to be flawed for several reasons: 

1. Viola sees the Trinity as the key to understanding the church (page 33 ff).  But nowhere in the Scriptures is the church described as the reflection of the Trinity. In other words, he uses a man-made doctrine (the Trinity) rather than Scripture to provide the meaning of a biblical term and to repudiate other man made doctrines. I’m not denying the Trinity. I’m just saying it is poor scholarship to use one man made doctrine to denounce another man made doctrine and call it The biblical position on the subject.
2. When comparing the institutional church to the organic church Viola always uses the best possible examples of the organic church and the worst possible examples of institutional church practices. Viola refers to the house church as if It is a panacea where everyone loves everyone. I’ve had enough experience with house churches to know they have as many problems and are as shallow as are most institutional churches.
3.  Throughout the book he totally ignores many of the new forms of church life emerging simply because it is institutional. And he encourages his readers to abandon the institutional church altogether.  I think this is a very deadly game he is playing.
4. Viola acknowledges the need for contextualization (pps. 37-39) when it comes to cultural things in the Scriptures but denies the need to contextualize the Gospel into our present culture.  It’s okay to rule out the need for women to cover their heads in public but it’s not okay to say that in an institutional and concert driven world an institutional church with a formalized worship service might be valid. To him that would be “overcontextualizing,” but who is to say where the line should be drawn? 
5. When it suits him Viola uses a literal translation of the Greek; when it doesn’t he loosing interprets the text to fit his basic premise. Consider his treatment of oversight in the church (Chapter Nine) and authority and submission in Chapter 12.  In both cases he either interprets a clear text into oblivion (pps. 168-176, ) or he totally ignores texts (p. 211) that don’t fit his theme. One of the most flagrant attempts to make the  Scriptures fit his thesis is on page 193 where he proof texts congregational consensus decision making by quoting from Acts 15:22 “with the whole church” and totally ignoring Acts 15:6-7 “The apostles and elders met to consider this question. After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them.”
6. His use of the term, “family,” to be the basic metaphor for the church goes against most  of  Scripture where the church is described as the “body of Christ,” or the “bride of Christ” (Chapter Five).  If Christianity has to be contextualized to the world in which it finds itself to be effective, then what Viola is advocating will be the death of Christianity in the West.  Without the institution and without large venue worship, the vast majority of people in this country will never experience Jesus. The house church movement has simply not shown itself to have long term sustainability.  I have no problem with the house church movement. I pray it flourishes; but I also pray the institutional form of Christianity can take the legitimate violations of biblical principles Viola points out and put them into practice.  And what would this look like?
7. Church planting would be the number one mission of all of God’s people and Apostolic church overseers would emerge as the most important role in the church.
8. The distinction between laity and clergy would be replaced by the priesthood of all believers and preaching and teaching would be based on affirmed gifts rather than on academic authority.
9. Leadership would always be a shared leadership (Chapters Eight and Nine). But still there needs to be a “first among equals” for Christianity to reach its potential in our society.  However, leadership must be earned, not taken. The primary roles of this leadership would be to servant (role model), motivate, and mold.
10. Christians would understand that church is not something they “go to” but is something they are wherever two or three of them gather.
11. Every believer would be a participant in a regular small group where all the pastoral care and edification would be received (Chapter Four).
12. The large venue worship would be solely for evangelistic purposes rather than the care and feeding of a passive audience (p. 49).
13. The Lord’s Supper would never be taken in public worship but would be experienced in the small group where there is complete unity and agreement and “friendship intimacy” (Chapter Three).
14. All authority would have to be earned within the congregation so most of the pastors and staff would be raised up from within the congregation (Chapter Nine).
15. Denominations would no longer be needed as people would understand that there is only one church in each city and our unity would be based on our acknowledgement of the Lordship of Jesus Christ (Chapter Six).
16. The Church would understand that it is the Body and Bride of Christ and act accordingly which means unity, harmony, and a common purpose prevail (Chapter Five).
17.  Decision making would prerogative  of the Elders (shared leadership team) of the church as is demonstrated in Acts 15 (you should note that Viola interprets this text into oblivion with some strange story that brings the entire Jerusalem church into  the decision making process p.193). I find nothing in Viola’s writings that can’t be applied to the institutional church. Sure, it will cause much consternation in most congregations. But we still won’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water. Viola’s book would be far more appealing if he left room for contextualizing the church into our society and eliminating all of the bad baggage of established Christianity.

So here’s my question not so much to the Organic folks but to the Attractional and Reproductive folks: how can we take the unarguable truths in this book and apply them to our present day context?

My partner, Bill Tenny-Brittian, and I will be doing two events in October that are open to the public. It would be great to see you there. You can click on the graphic for details

Convergence Cleveland Oct. 17-18

Convergence Chicago Oct. 24-25