awaiting rain

Wrong Place, Wrong Time

Lynn and I were driving home from Illinois last week when she asked the question, "What do you think you would have been like if you had grown up in the sixties and early seventies?"  Let me put the question into context for you.  The night before we had watched one of my all-time favorite childhood movies, Billy Jack.  You'll need to watch the movie to get the connection.  As we drove, Keith Green was playing on the car stereo.  And I had just finished reading a portion of the CD booklet about how Keith and Melody Green had purchased several houses around them for the purpose of providing shelter and relationships to drug-addicted street people, and this was their "church."

Earlier today I had lunch with one of the pastors at our church and the conversation took much the same turn.  I shared with him about how God has stripped away so much of my thoughts, ideas, and perspectives of what it means to be the church.  He asked me what God was replacing those things with.  I couldn't answer, other than to say, "himself."  We talked about a lot, but I eventually came back around to this feeling that I was born in the wrong place and the wrong time because what I feel most drawn to and wired for, in terms of church, doesn't really exist right here, right now.  Let me explain:

I feel like I should have been in my 30's in Germany in the ten years after Martin Luther nailed his theses to the church door.  I feel like I should have been in my 30's walking with St. Patrick through the British Isles planting monastic communities among the barbarians.  I feel like I should have been in my 30's in China immediately after the communist revolution crushed the above-ground church.

We talked about the future.  And I shared with him that I am a person for whom the world ten years out is in clearer focus than the world 24 hours from now.  And I feel pretty good about my place in life ten years from now, though the here and now is incredibly frustrating.

The reason I feel pretty good about my place in the church world ten years from now is because I am increasingly coming to believe that within the next ten years this country will experience a complete evangelical meltdown.  Society and government will have pushed us further to the margins, possibly even underground.  Churches will stand empty.  Mega-star preachers will have become extinct, or irrelevant at best.  And it is in this world that I feel most suited to live as a follower of Christ and herald of His Kingdom.

Many believe that the best thing that could happen would be for a Christian to be elected president, preside over a Republican congress, and appoint Christian judges to the Supreme Court.  I, on the other hand, believe that this would do nothing but stop the advance of the Kingdom in it's tracks.  I think, if we really want to see the Kingdom of God explode across our land, we will need a secular or even atheist president in office and an activist Supreme Court aligned with the A.C.L.U.  Throughout history, the people of God have always subverted the empire from the margins and the underground.  On the other hand, every time the people of God have been granted governmental privilege, they have drifted into a spiritual coma punctuated with sickening fits of corruption and heresy.

Therefore, today, I find myself in a very interesting, precarious, and paradoxical place of longing for the church in America to collapse so the Kingdom can prevail.  This is not a safe place for my heart and mind to be because it puts me directly at odds with the pop-Christian world around me.  No mega-church pastor wants to hear any Christian say that the best thing for advancing the Kingdom would be for his church to fold.  No self-help "Christian" author wants to hear another Christian say that the best thing for the Kingdom to advance would be for his books to be pulled from store shelves.  No "Christian" broadcaster wants to hear another Christian say that the best thing for the Kingdom to advance would be for the plug to be pulled on their broadcast.  And no sensible Christian wants to hear that the best thing for advancing the Kingdom would be for some of us to lose our lives.  But I'm saying it.

What will the movement of Jesus followers (formerly known as the church) look like after the great Evangelical meltdown?  I suppose nobody really knows.  A visitor to this blog named Anna shared her thoughts in a comment a few months ago of one future scenario.  It's a scenario that I find incredibly appealing and would gladly devote my life to.

I think this is where the New Monasticism is an important, if not civilization-saving, venture.  Petroleum will run out, this is a given. We cannot continue as is. Christians will (or should) be at the forefront of a grand Urban and Rural redesign project. We will have to study hard the details of forgotten social history, through the lens of our faith.

The nitty gritty: Fight to change zoning laws to encourage multi-story and multi-use  pedestrian-friendly buildings. Read up on New Urbanism and Ecological design. Move into poor neighborhoods or into small towns or into the country. Rehab old row houses or build Community houses (like duplexes except with shared cooking/living areas.) Stay  Put. For a Long Time. Do local music, local dance, local food. Grow that food! Fair Trade most everything else. Love children in your neighborhood. Keep your old-folks around. Start or finance micro-enterprise.

To sum up: re-invent the wheel with a pile of broken parts. Folks will be drawn to what you are doing like bees to sunflowers because they are lonely and might overcome their self-centeredness just enough to be drawn into Real Life.

As I said in an earlier post, being the underground church in America may never have anything to do with hiding.  But it will look dramatically different from how we now do church, yet dramatically consistent with what it means to be the Church.

Peace Through Pursuit of I AM

For much of the past year I have had the privilege of leading a small community of people who are emerging from severe brokenness and pursuing God.  We meet on Sunday evenings and I always leave feeling overwhelmed with the passion these people have for knowing God and the ways in which He shows up to meet them where they are.

Tonight I didn't have much of an agenda as we have just finished our Advent study and haven't yet decided on our next focus.  We decided to continue our journey through the New Testament.  Before Advent we finished Philippians which means that we'll now move on to Colossians.  One of the guys present mentioned that his favorite verse was in Colossians so I asked him to share it.

"And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful."  (Colossians 3:15)

We began talking about this peace, how to recognize it, what it feels like, what it's absence is like, and how to find it when it is absent.  One of the ladies present shared that she doesn't think she's ever known  what it's like to have this peace ruling in her heart.  She talked about trying to find direction, purpose, and meaning in her life, but to no avail.  At fifty-something years old she still has no idea what to do with her life.

I shared how I too struggle in this way.  I talked about how difficult this past year has been in that the destiny I spent twenty-plus years pursuing seems to be turning out not to be my destiny after-all.

God then showed up in our conversation and I led them into a different way of processing these things.  Here is reprise of that conversation.

We enter kindergarten at the age of five.  For thirteen years we are taught to nurture and develop our minds.  At the end of high school or college we are then taught and expected to nurture our careers.  We get married and are expected to nurture our marriages and families.  We reach our thirties and forties and are expected to nurture our finances, our children's college funds, and our retirement funds.  We reach retirement and are expected to nurture a couple decades of leisure.  We reach our eighties and our children take over nurturing us into the grave.  The world teaches us to nurture and develop a lot of good things, but not the most important thing.  With this lifelong agenda, peace is often little more than an out-of-reach ideal.

There's nothing wrong with education, career, family, finances, and retirement.  These are all parts of life with which we are to be responsible.  Where should I go to school?  What should I do with my life?  How do I make ends meet and still save for the future?  These are all questions with which we wrestle and in which we seldom find peace.

In Matthew 6 Jesus talks about our tendency to be consumed by worries about the everydayness of life and how such worrying cannot add even a single hour to our life.  He encourages us to seek first the Kingdom of God and all of these other things will be taken care of.  When we shift our focus from the agendas of this life to the pursuit of the Kingdom, everything tends to get turned upside down.

In our conversation, I then took us back to the Colossians passage we looked at earlier.  Look at the bigger context of the passage, beginning with verse twelve, and I believe we see the "secret" of finding and living in that heart-ruling peace the writer is talking about.

12 "Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves,"

I think this is where peace begins.   Rather than beginning our day concerned about our career, our finances, or our destiny, what if we began the day by reminding ourselves of the most important truth in the life of a believer: that God chose us to be holy people whom he loves.  When we understand that God's greatest desire for us is that we will know how much he loves us, everything else that we tend to worry about becomes a little less important.  So where do we go from there?

"...you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience."

Once we anchor ourselves in the understanding that knowing God's love is the primary purpose for which we were created, we then move onto the second most important purpose in life which is the renovation of our soul.  One of the things I frequently said to our congregation while pastoring was that God is more interesting in who you are becoming than he is about what you are doing.  Rather than beginning our day concerned with our career, our finances, or our destiny, what if we began the day with a determination to be and become merciful, kind, humble, gentle, and patient men and women?  As our character begins to be transformed in this way, something else begins to happen.

13 "Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony."

The renovation of our heart begins to manifest itself in a renovation of our relationships.  We begin to react and respond to people in different ways.  We become people who love and in so doing discover that we are being loved.  We befriend people and find ourselves being befriended.   We become bearers of light for others and find our own way illuminated.  Finally, when we understand God's love for us, are transformed inwardly, and begin living differently outwardly, we find it more and more easy to...

"Let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful."

As this peace takes up permanent residence in our hearts and is the ruling, guiding force by which we live, our impact on the world around us, our purpose, our destiny will begin to unfold in ways that we could never have forced into existence.

16 "Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father."

We will become people who are unwavering in our relationship with Christ and the new life he gives to us.  We will be people who (though we were once confused and lost) are filled with the wisdom, the music, and the joy that draws others out of their own darkness into the light.  And herein lies the greatest purpose that a human life can fulfill, far greater than any degree of education, any career, any financial status, and any power or prestige known to man.

I am convinced (and desperately need to return to this conviction) that when we center our hearts on a radical pursuit of God's heart then much of what we think and worry about will unfold before us in beautiful, unpredictable, and gloriously dangerous ways.

August Rush

It was an amazing thing to feel moisture on my face while watching one movie earlier this year called "Into the Wild."  Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would cry at TWO movies this year.  But alas, last night Lynn and I went to see "August Rush."  Instead of trying to put it into my own words, I'll simply let you watch the trailer.  If you are one who is stirred by that which is mystically larger than yourself, by music, and by the power of love then you will want to see this movie.

Another Year of Reading

Among the obvious elements of time with family, good food, and remembrance of God's gift of His Son to humanity, a good Christmas for me also involves the receiving of books.  This year was no exception.  I typically read fifteen or twenty books per year and am looking forward to diving into my 2008 reading list.  I'll highlight the first few books on my list for you in a minute.

For the past several years my reading has centered almost entirely around books about church, church planting, outreach, missions, and the evolution of our post-Christian culture.  This year my subject matter will be expanded.

I will be reading books about personal Spirituality.  I've grown weary of, and have virtually unplugged from, the pop-Christianity represented by most Christian bookstores, religious broadcasting, and "contemporary" church services.  Therefore I've chosen two books about the ancient Celtic ways of faith.

I will still read a couple of books about church and culture, but these are quite different from what I've typically read on the topic.  I believe we are seeing the beginning of what I'm calling an "Evangelical Meltdown" in this country and these two books address some of the issues involved.

This upcoming year is a pivotal one in American politics and our place in the world.  Therefore I've chosen two books to help me become more informed on these issues.  One focuses on how we began as a civilization, and the other on where we stand today.

Here are the first six books on my reading pile for this year.  I'll post an excerpt of the Amazon description.  Each title will be a link to that book's page in my Amazon store so you can read more about it.

The Celtic Way of Prayer is my first spiritual selection for the year.  Here's an excerpt from Amazon:

Historian and retreat leader de Waal explores the rich legacy of Celtic songs, poems, prayers, and blessings that grew out of the dynamic meeting of Christian monasticism with an older, communal way of life ordered by kinship, a rural sense of place, the pattern of the seasons, and the cycles of birth and death. The author does a fine job tracing the strands that make Celtic Christianity compelling and unique. An important addition to Celtic literature for both general readers and specialists. ~ Library Journal

Listening For The Heartbeat of God is next.

This book has brought me into a closer relationship with God and fostered healing in my life. I am very grateful to Newell for his beautiful weaving of the glorious mysteries of God and the wholesome balance of Celtic Theology. If you are more interested in the institutionalized church, you may have problems with this book. But for those of us who are seeking a deeper meaning to life than the traditional church has to offer, this is the book for you. It will provide everyone with an avenue for deeper worship and possibly enable you to bring this back into your own individual church.  ~Amazon Reader Review

UnChristian is the first book I've chosen to help me better understand the rising perceptions of Christianity and church among emerging generations.

Kinnaman, president of the Barna Institute, was inspired to write this book when Lyons (of the Fermi Project) commissioned him to do extensive research on what young Americans think about Christianity. Lyons had a gut-level sense that something was desperately wrong, and three years of research paints exactly that picture. Mosaics and Busters (the generations that include late teens to early 30-somethings) believe Christians are judgmental, antihomosexual, hypocritical, too political and sheltered. Rather than simply try to do a PR face-lift, Kinnaman looks at ways in which churches' activities actually may have been unchristian and encourages a return to a more biblical Christianity, a faith that not only focuses on holiness but also loves, accepts and works to understand the world around it.  ~ Publisher's Weekly

Simple Church seeks to bring us back to the "purpose" of church that gets lost amidst today's pop-
Christianity, but will remain after the evangelical meltdown - the purpose of being and making disciples.

Simple Church clearly calls for Christians to return to the simple gospel-sharing methods of Jesus. No bells or whistles required, so to speak.

Based on case studies of four hundred American churches, authors Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger prove that the process for making disciples has quite often become too complex. Simple churches are thriving, and they are doing so by taking these four ideas to heart: Clarity. Movement. Alignment. Focus.

Each idea is examined here, simply showing why it is time to simplify.  ~ Amazon Product Description

The 5000 Year Leap is my first book about the formation of America.

This book covers everything about the founding of this great country and the true meaning of the "Separation of Church and State". Also covered is the proper definition of "Right and Left" when talking politics or government. A particular favorite of mine is how the founders felt political office was patriotic and not to be used for financial gain or as a career. This book really makes a person look at were this country started from and what it has become.  ~ Amazon Reader Review

America Alone is next on my list bringing clarity to where we are as a nation in the midst of an increasingly anti-American world and the inevitable threats we will face.

In this, his first major book, Mark Steyn--probably the most widely read, and wittiest, columnist in the English-speaking world--takes on the great poison of the twenty-first century: the anti-Americanism that fuels both Old Europe and radical Islam. America, Steyn argues, will have to stand alone. The world will be divided between America and the rest; and for our sake America had better win.  ~ Amazon Product Description

How Ants Cost Me $147.00 and Almost Killed My Dog

Lynn and I pulled our road weary Camry into the garage at around 7:50 Wednesday evening after driving for ten hours from Christmas with our families in Illinois.  Relieved to be home we lugged in our packages and suitcases and were eager to crash on the couch.  With the final pieces of luggage in hand and the couch in sight, I was startled to hear my wife's screams from the kitchen.  I ran to her side and was astonished to find a sea of ants covering the counter tops and sink.  The creepy, pulsing ocean was fed by multiple rivers of little black bastards (pardon my language) streaming down from the walls and cabinets and circling the entire perimeter of the kitchen where the walls meet the ceiling.

At the epicenter of the grotesque scene was a covered baking dish with remnants of brownies we had failed to finish before leaving for the holidays.  As I pulled the lid back and looked inside I felt like I should be in a Stephen King movie.  My stomach turned.  I shut the lid, raced outside with the dish, and dumped the brownies and 2,436,875 ants into the yard. My hands and arms were covered.

The battle ensued.  We first unleashed chemical warfare on them with the only thing I could find...Windex.  This stunned them long enough for us to wipe many of them away into the trash.  But they kept coming.  Finally Lynn took off for Wal-Mart to find something stronger.  I pulled out the heavy artillery - a vacuum cleaner - and began sucking them off the walls, ceiling, crown molding, and cabinets.  Within a few minutes, only a handful of wounded and frightened survivors wandered dazed across the floor.  I paused to catch my breath.  A few minutes passed.  I looked up, and reinforcements were on the way.  A whole new infantry division had begun marching around the top of the wall.  Thankfully, Lynn arrived just in time to slaughter them with Raid's weapon of mass destruction.

We had won.

Twenty-four hours later Lynn and I were watching television and realized it was time to put our Golden Retriever, Neo, outside for his 9:00 constitutional.  After ten minutes or so I went to let him in.  He wasn't sitting at the door as is his customary ritual.  He was eating something.  I froze...because I knew exactly what he had in his mouth.  Brownies.  Panicked, I ran toward him.  He ran away from me.  I finally caught him and forced what was left of the brownie out of his mouth and took him inside.

In case you don't know this, chocolate is lethal to dogs.  Once a dog has eaten it, you have two hours to get them to vomit before it is absorbed into the bloodstream and causes seizures, heart arrhythmia, and death.

We called our vet at home.  He told us to pour peroxide down Neo's throat until he vomited.  We spent over an hour trying to force it down his throat with all different kinds of utensils, none of which worked.  He wouldn't swallow.  I gave up, beginning to realize that I had likely just killed our Neo.  I made one more phone call to the animal emergency hospital.  They told us to bring him in immediately.  We arrived just as the two hour window closed.

The doctors took him back to ER and gave him an injection to induce immediate vomiting.  We were in the waiting room but could hear through the wall as someone said, "look at all that chocolate!"  They then forced liquid charcoal down his throat, and gave him another injection to slow down his digestion.

Approximately thirty minutes later we left ER with one pissed off - but okay - dog.  I paid the kind lady at the desk $147.00.  And we went home.

Neo slept most of the night in our bed, right between my feet.

This is supposed to be a "money" post, so here's your money tip:  If you want to avoid spending $147.00 at the animal hospital, don't throw your ant-infested brownies out into the yard where your dog can find them.

Why Bhutto's Assassination Matters

Joel Rosenberg is the author of, among other titles, Epicenter.  This book offers an understanding of what is happening in current world events from the context of prophetic passages in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel.  He is amazingly accurate in his predictions.  He frequently sends out "flash traffic" e-mails as events unfold.  Today he sent one with the same title as this post.  Here is an excerpt:

"To be blunt: Pakistan and her nuclear weapons are in danger of falling into the hands of Islamic radicals. Such radicals have attempted to assassinate Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf multiple times in the last few years, hoping to seize control of the government and impose sharia law. Today's attack is a sobering reminder that Pakistan is just one coup d'etat away from Osama bin Laden or one of his fanatical, murderous allies suddenly gaining control. It is difficult to imagine a more nightmarish scenario than al-Qaeda in possession of Pakistan's nuclear arsensal, but this is not an impossibility."

Go here to read the full post.

Go here for more information about Rosenberg's book, Epicenter.

Leading a World on Fire

"The news of Bhotto's assassination was a surprise, even though something wrong was totally expected to happen today. Sitting in Pakistan, I am fully aware of the situation in our cities...roads are blocked, traffic has jammed, cellular networks are over-loaded, and most sadly, agitated supporters of PPP (Benazir's political party) are putting on fire many shops and cars, and I'm afraid I don't expect them to calm down sometime soon. I, and most of other people are too afraid to step out of their houses, and life in our cities has almost come to a halt.

All, I can pray for now is for God to help my country and its people and to save it from further turmoil."  ~ Hassaan in Pakistan, December 27th, 2007 at 10:30 am Eastern Time

The man or woman who will preside over our country into the next decade must be someone with the wisdom to know how to lead the one global superpower in the midst of a wold that is burning out of control.  How will he or she lead?  Will it be through military intervention?  Will it be through diplomacy?  Perhaps a delicate blend of both?  Or will he or she draw us back into a neutral stance allowing nations to either resolve their own internal conflicts or fan their flames into a global conflagration?

As you look in their faces and listen to their speeches, be sure to ask youself, "Is this person really ready for the world he or she is about to step into as the most powerful leader on earth?"

The assasination of the Archduke Ferdinand in 1914 was the spark to ignite World War I.  Today it seems the sky is ablaze with glowing, drifing embers.  I think 2008 will be a tipping point in human history.

When We Are The Incarnation

This passage of scripture forever changed my view of ministry in the spring of 2005:  This is what the Lord Almighty says: "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and will say, 'Let us go with you because we have heard that God is with you.'"

This prophecy is given to a people who had been beaten down, defeated, disgraced, and were seen as little more than human driftwood.  Yet God was promising them that one day, rather than being the scorn of the nations, they would be the envy of the nations.  Why? Because God Himself, the only one capable of filling the emptiness of the human heart, would be startlingly real in their midst.  Because they, the Jews, would incarnate the character and nature of God.

Should this not be the case with us?  We who have taken up our cross to follow Christ and have become indwelt by the Holy Spirit should, more than anyone else, be living, breathing incarnations of the person of Christ who is the exact representation of the Father.

I have become convinced that people do not become fully devoted, disciple-making followers of Christ through the excellency of man-made programs.  Churches may grow in number through their professional worship team, their seamless organization chart, their savvy marketing, and their cultural releveance.  But I believe something more powerful is at work when we see a person who has never known God become acquainted with a faith community, become a regular participant in that community, become a believer, and then become a fully-devoted disciple.  I believe that when that progression takes place it is because that person has looked upon a community of Christ-followers, become overwhelmed with the reality of God in their midst, and cried out, "Let me go with you because I have heard, and seen, and felt that God is with you!"

My role in life is to be a navigator and fellow voyager toward greater and greater places of intimacy with God and intimacy with others.  It is in those places of horizontal and vertical intimacy that we most clearly come to know God, come to know ourselves and come to understand the unique impact that we alone can have upon the world around us as we incarnate the character and nature of God within the natural rythmns of our lives.

My prayer is that multitudes of people in our city will be drawn into relationship with Christ not because of how well we manage the "church machine," but because of how undeniably real God is in the everyday lives of those who claim to know Him.

Essentials of the Christian Faith?

Last week I had an opportunity to converse via e-mail with a new acquaintance in the Columbus area who is interested in my perspective on what it means to be an authentic follower of Christ.  Though we disagree on some points, he and I share some of the same views.  I'm looking forward to continuing our conversation over coffee.

I thought I'd share the conversation with you here for our Monday "spirituality" post.  I wrote it last week and programmed it to post today since I will be traveling for Christmas.  Enjoy the following conversation with an acquaintance.  Out of respect I've changed his name to "Calvin."

Calvin: As far as the Christian faith goes, what would you say are the 'essential' components for someone to hold in order to consider themselves 'Chrsitian'?

Bill: As for your question about essential components of being a Christian, I would summarize it this way:

1. A true Christian is someone who recognizes and acknowledges their brokenness apart from God.

2. A true Christian is someone who has staked their life on the belief that Jesus Christ is God, took on human flesh to live among us, gave his life as the one and only atonement for the sins of humanity, overcame death through his bodily resurrection, and in so doing proved himself as the way to restoration with God, the truth revealed to mankind, and the life we all long for.

3. And finally, a true Christian is someone who, because of the previous two points, is determined to surrender the entirety of his/her life to living the way of Jesus both privately and publicly and joining Jesus in his redemptive mission to humanity.

Calvin: You don't specifically mention sin. I understand the idea with brokenness, but being broken and being guilty of breaking God's law are different. This might be something better discussed over the aforementioned coffee.

Bill: Let me preface my responses by saying this:  As a man called by God to join Christ in his redemptive mission, I am much more interested in communicating the truths of the Kingdom to those outside of the Kingdom than I am about preaching to the choir.  To do so, one must break free of church language and learn to speak the native tongue of the culture we're trying to reach.  Much like Paul on Mars Hill, I am learning to use words, phrases, ideas, and concepts that most clearly speak to people who don't really understand words like "sin," "justitification," "sanctification," "propitiation," etc.  Though I absolutely believe those things...those words don't communicate well in this post-Christian culture we now live in.

Sin is the first cause and ever-deepening root of brokenness.  The lost understand brokenness, though they typically don't comprehend the gravity of being a lawbreaker and how all of their brokenness is a result of being such.  As I have led people into relationship with Christ, I've found it much more effective to begin with what they know, and then help them to understand that their pain and emptiness is the direct result of the absence of God and the absence of God is the result of disobedience that began with the first man and is passed down to every person.

Calvin: Christ's redemptive mission to humanity. This could be taken one of two ways (maybe more but only two come to mind). One it could be that Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost (spiritually), and that should be our goal as Christians. Another could be to do acts of kindness, showing Christ's love, building God's Kingdom on earth so it's a good enough place for Jesus to return. I've come to understand that both ideas are out there but one matches scripture better. Again, this topic would probably go better with coffee.

Bill: I believe it is clearly both as they are both clearly demonstrated by Christ. Jesus came to seek and save the lost because the Kingdom had now become available to humanity. For three and a half years Jesus sought and saved the lost through kindness, love, mercy, compassion, and teaching people how to live the life of the Kingdom here and now. He was the friend of sinners, the healer, the kind and compassionate one. Likewise, we are to proclaim that the Kingdom has come and is now available to every person. If we want to clearly demonstrate the character of Christ and the life of the kingdom, then we will be people of love, mercy, kindness, generosity, and compassion as the Holy Spirit has his transforming way with us.

Calvin: My idea of the essentials would be the following: 1- Gotta believe that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three distinct persons, yet one God.

Bill: Though I believe this theology, I don't think that an understanding of the Trinity is a prerequisite for salvation. Jesus said, "believe in me, take up your cross, and follow me." He didn't say, "be able to explain the triune Godhead and you will be saved." Truth is, I don't think anybody really understands the Trinity.

Calvin: 2- Man is by nature dead in his sins.

Bill: Yep...with ya there.

Calvin: 3- Salvation only comes through repentance (stop sinning, agree with God that your sin is offensive to Him, apologize, turn, start going in the right direction, and don't stop) and faith (trusting in Jesus to save you). No works required for salvation, but the good works come out of our gratitude to Jesus for saving us. A true Christian is someone who has repented and put their trust in Jesus.

Bill: I'm pretty much with you here though your order of things doesn't quite sit with me well. If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that salvation comes first through a cessation of sin. I would disagree, because we cannot cease our sinning until we are empowered by the Holy Spirit dwelling in, empowering, and sanctifying us. Many believe that the order of things should be: "behave properly, believe properly, then you can belong to the community of believers. I believe that the order of things is: "belong to a community of believers, then you will begin to believe the truth, and then the truth will transform your behavior."

Christ demonstrated this with the disciples. He invited them to follow him...to just drop what they were doing and follow him. As they did, they began to believe. As they began to believe, they began to behave differently. A later example of this can be found in St. Patrick's work in evangelizing the Celtic barbarians.  He formed monastic communities among them and invited them into those communities as they were.  In experiencing life with believers, the barbarians began to believe and Christianity swept the British Isles.

All of that to say, I believe the transformation from a life of sin to a life of holiness is a gradual process as the Holy Spirit transforms our hearts and minds after salvation. My understanding of scripture is that all that is required for salvation is acknowledging our separation from God because of sin, believing that Christ is the atonement for that sin, and surrendering ourselves to and placing our faith in that atonement. This is the starting point from which, in a true follower of Christ, a life of holiness will emerge. The person who acknowledges their sin, proclaims a belief in Christ and claims surrender to him...yet never leaves the life of sin...would cause me to question the authenticity of their salvation.

Calvin: 4- Scripture is God-breathed, inerrant, all-sufficient. It is to be read and interpreted correctly, used skillfully (which is why it's called a sword).

Bill: Yeah, with ya here.  But I would ask, who determines and how do they determine correct interpretation?

Calvin: And a last one that I struggle with about whether it's an essential or maybe just where I lean... 5- Church is for Christians. We shouldn't just invite people to church and hope they hear a zinger of a message, get convicted of their sin, repent and trust in the Savior. Evangelism should be outside of the church. Lost people by nature cannot really worship because they are by nature enemies of God.

Bill: "Church" as it is done today is nothing like the church of the first three hundred centuries. Today we practice a Greco-Roman form of church passed onto us from Constantine (whom I believe dreadfully wrecked the church and her missional impulse).

The only way evangelism can be "outside the church" is if we are identifying the building and it's weekly program as "the church." People are the church, wherever they may be and whatever they may be doing. "The church" is right here in my office as I type this. "The church" is right there where you are reading this. "The church" is right there in your neighborhood, because you are there. Therefore "the church" and "the world" are inseparably intertwined and it's in this interaction that people who don't know God see the reality of his presence in the way we live, love, serve, and worship.

I suspect that you are talking primarily about corporate worship. Even here I would disagree to some extent. You're right in saying that the lost can't worship. But the lost CAN recognize the presence and nature of God (Romans 1) and be drawn to Him as a result and what better place for that to be experienced than amidst those who DO know him? In his remedial instructions to the Corinthians, Paul explained to them how the spiritual gifts were supposed to function properly in a worship gathering. He makes specific mention of doing things certain ways for the sole purpose of helping the "unbelievers present" to draw near to God.

...and then a follow-up

Bill: As I re-read your statement about evangelism outside of the church, I recognize that I missed your point. I DO agree with you that the reaching of the lost should happen naturally as believers and non-belivers do life together outside of the formal church service. I was reading your statement to say that non-believers should not be allowed to be present in worship gatherings (as one of my other online friends believes). I see now that this is not what you were saying. Sorry...my bad.

And this is where our conversation left off. I hope we'll ponder these things further over coffee. I'll let you know how the conversation goes.

So This is Chrismtas