Exponential: Tim Keller

The Gospel
Tim Keller

• The DNA of a reproducing church has to be the gospel.
• In the Christian world, no one's really sure what the gospel is anymore.
• The cross confronts and fulfills cultural longings.

The Gospel Tripod

1. In Jesus Christ, God emptied himself.
2. In Jesus Christ, God atoned for our sins.
3. In Jesus Christ, God will return and restore all things.

Many have focused on only one of the three, which results in an incomplete gospel.

What's Our Creed?

In our discussions about a doctrinal statement, one of the ideas I had was to start with the Apostles' Creed but update/revise it a little bit. My hope in doing that would be to tie into the history of the Church while updating the language and a couple points of doctrine. Below is a draft and the changes that were made. I'd love comments on if this is an okay thing to do and what changes need to be made to it.

We believe in one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Creator of heaven and earth. Jesus Christ, the only Son of the Father was born of the virgin Mary and was truly God and truly human. He lived a perfect life, died on a cross, and was buried. On the third day he rose from the dead. He appeared to many witnesses and ascended into heaven where he mediates for us at the Father’s right hand. One day he will return in glory and fully establish his kingdom.

We believe in the Holy Spirit, the one body of Christ—comprised of all who are in him, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and eternal life.


What else needs to be included?
What is included that doesn’t need to be?

Changes from the Apostles’ Creed

1. The Father is not identified as Creator apart from the Son and the Holy Spirit since Scripture attests that all three were involved in the creation in specific ways.
2. That the one God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is made explicit.
3. A statement about Jesus’ perfect life is added and the direct reference to his suffering under Pilate is removed.
4. The mention of descending into Hades is removed. There are varying opinions on whether or not this is what Scripture refers to. It does not seem to be an essential point.
5. A statement of his appearance to witnesses is added.
6. Christ is specifically named as our mediator.
7. The statement of judgment is replaced with a statement of the establishment of God’s kingdom. Might be good to include both.
8. The “holy catholic Church” is replaced with the biblical metaphor of the body of Christ.
9. “The communion of the saints” is removed.

Open Systems 1

I have been doing a lot of reading, thinking, and discussing about open systems in recent weeks. The most recent impetus for this pursuit has been the book "The Spider and the Starfish." It looks at two organizational models. The first is a more traditional, hierarchical brand. It is compared to the spider because it dies if you take away its leadership, akin to cutting off the head of a spider. It is solid, but lacks the ability to adapt quickly. The second is a very decentralized, always-morphing organization that tends to honor leadership based on character and action rather than on position. This one is compared to a starfish because a starfish can be cut in two and rather than dying it will only produce two new starfish. Without going into all the details and making this entry insufferably long, suffice to say that starfish organizations are stand up to change much better (and change is a staple in our culture) and they tend to bring out greater participation and creativity from their members (something we long to see in Christian discipleship). It seems open systems could be good for the Church.

At least in the things I have been reading there is much talk about embracing open systems in our manifestations of the church. Of organizing in such a way that there are not centralized buildings and leadership, or even programs and theology for that matter (don't read that as saying "any statement about God is as valid as any other"). I think that were open systems truly embraced there would be great benefit to the people of God, but there are barriers to realizing this change. One is that humanity loves control. If an open system is created, influence must be earned over time, it cannot be taken or granted through title and position. This also makes paid church leadership a more "iffy" proposition. Not that it can't happen, but it must be abandoned as a necessity or right. A second problem is our undying fear of heresy. We must be in control or we will slide into something far removed from a biblical theology and practice. Other than the glaring problem that much of the Western Church is already in this predicament, especially in the area of practice and subservience to idolatrous ideologies, where open systems have been formed they have shown themselves to self-regulate. For instance, you might expect Wikipedia, with its availability to anyone's contribution, to be a hodgepodge of idiocy and misinformation, but it is nothing of the sort. It is largely accurate and when people do put misinformation on it usually corrected quickly by other users. We may be less necessary as gatekeepers of theology than we think.

There is much more to be said about this, but I'll leave it here for now.

Holy Conversations

I had one of those holy conversations this week with a friend. It was one of the first times we've sat down and discussed Church, and it was uplifting to hear his heart, thoughts, and passions. I want to share some of his insights because I think he's one of many people that struggles with some of these things:

He’s felt a pull to become a pastor, but recently decided to hold off seminary because he has seen pastoral work lately as alot of administration and running the business side of a church. He's uniquely gifted at teaching, mentoring, and spiritual development.

He struggles with the professionalism that is pushed upon churches that grow from small to large. No longer is it about the heart of the person, but it’s about who can preach and teach best, who can sing and play best, and, sometimes even who looks best.

He's seen that spiritual growth isn’t happening at the service, and he believes people aren’t experiencing spiritual growth because they’re not in spiritual relationships with others.

Churches he has visited explain everything in three points or four tips, as if you can explain Jesus and put Him in a box. He's wondering if/how churches should embrace the mysteriousness of Christ?

This isn't about negativity toward the Church, nor do I think I have the answers. These are simply statements that I've thought about, and my friend has thought about, and I know others think about.

Who's Values Part One--Sexuality

I've been playing with an idea now for a couple weeks and am really interested in feedback (I know commenting on this blog isn't of highest importance for everyone, but I'd love to get in some face to face conversations about this).

My basic premise is this--the sins the evangelical church has been most critical of are the ones that have been most strongly opposed in our nation's history. The ones we let slide (and sometimes even promote) are the correspond to the values applauded in our nation's history. I will deal with four issues here by way of example--sexuality, alcohol consumption, wealth, and pride. Because this takes some time to develop I'm just going to take one per post.

Sexuality
I recently had a friend who was asked to marry a couple who claimed to be Christians. He asked them if they were living together and they responded that they were. He told them that if they didn't live separately until the wedding that he would not do a Christian ceremony. He would still do the ceremony (and believed that they were Christians who had gotten off track in this area), but he would do the same thing he does for people who are not Christians.

Until the sexual revolution of the 1960s the United States was a fairly conservative nation in regard to sexuality. I don't pretend people weren't having affairs, premarital sex. and homosexual sex, but these were not things people broadcast. To a large extent they were looked down upon, even outside the church (and in what I'm trying to develop that is actually more important). Then the era of free love came along and blew up the conventional sensibilities of the nation in this area. At the time, many looked down on those who led and participated in the revolution that shifted how we think about sexuality. But over the years our nation's culture has come to accept and even glorify promiscuous and liberated sexuality.

But not so with the church. We would like to point to the Bible and say that we take a strong stand on issues of sexuality because it instructs us to do so--and I don't dispute that it does. However, we don't take a strong stand on all the issues the Bible speaks to, even those it speaks to strongly, so why this one? For many years we were able to stand with our nation in affirming a certain sexual ethic. Our nation has shifted but we have remained steadfast. It seems even that may be changing.

To come back to my friend. I don't think he did the wrong thing. He took a stand on an important topic. And he did it out of love because he knew the people he was dealing with. It made them do some reflecting and helped them realize they had stopped trying to please Christ above all else. So my example of him is not a negative one, I'm just asking the question, why are we so strong on this area where sin can manifest itself?

Faithful Invitation

One of the issues the missional church must deal with (and any church for that matter) is how we are to faithfully pursue the conversion of those who are not “in Christ.” Do people belong before they believe (a well-worn conversation)? Is it our job to make Christianity attractive? What are we converting people to? There are many biblical episodes that can inform our discussion, but one I don’t hear used very often is how the Jesus’ first disciples came to follow him.

In the second half of John 1, we’re told of the first four who follow Christ. In that story it is striking how the commitment of the prospective followers is nurtured through an invitation to be with Jesus personally. In the words of the writer, there is an offer to “come and see.” Jesus extends this offer to Andrew and his companion, Andrew brings his brother Simon to Jesus to see, and Philip extends the invitation to the skeptical Nathanael. In each case these men base their commitment to Jesus on a personal encounter with him.

Today, Jesus does not live with us in bodily form, so we cannot invite people to “come and see Jesus” in a personal, bodily way. But the invitation for people to come and see is no less important and I believe we give this invitation in two primary ways. 1) We invite people to see Jesus in his body—us. The difficult thing with this is that we must be manifesting the true nature of our master in our actions. If we are not faithful to Christ then we invite people to see Jesus in our midst but do great damage because they do not really see him. So it is imperative that we live our lives—individually and corporately—in ever-increasing faithfulness to Christ. 2) We invite people to see Jesus in the Scriptures. The Word of God has tremendous power to allow people to have an encounter with Jesus (Isaiah 55:10-11 and Hebrews 4:12).

As the church we must invite people to “come and see” Jesus and allow him to transform them.

For some great reading in this same direction check out The Insider.

Why Does the Church Exist?

In The Present Future by Reggie McNeal, he states that "The church was never intended to exist for itself." That's a pretty simple statement, but it's also the most difficult statement for many Christians today.

Think about what you often hear church people talk about (and I've definitely been more than guilty of this): I didn't like the music today. The sermon was boring. The children's program is not as good as it used to be. It's too seeker-sensitive; what about me? The color of the carpet is awful. I have a ministry to promote, but they won't let me. There's no one my age here.

We've forgotten why we exist. We need to get back to being God's redemptive instrument for the world. God invites us to join Him. And not just the pastors and other leaders in the church. You. Me. All of us.

As Bill Hybels says, "The church is the only hope of the world."

Can a Home Be a House of God?

Scot McKnight of Jesus Creed posted an article from a suburban Chicago newspaper about house churches in the area. Read that article here. It's pretty intriguing and brings up a lot of questions that I've wrestled with over the last few months.

Where's the accountability? How do you inspire tithing and giving? What about worship gatherings? Serving the community? Do they easily become closed to others when the group grows close? How do they multiply?

Don't get me wrong. I see alot of good in house churches compared to institutionalized church. These are just questions. What we're trying to do will have some aspects of a house church. I'd love to discuss some of these issues, or other issues you have. And, maybe Trevor can add more to this conversation as well.