Objections, Questions, & Doubts

Question: I went to a video presentation by Erwin McManus the other day that I think will enable me to verbalize my "objections" to simple church. I put "objections" into quotation marks because they are more of questions and doubts than objections. McManus' presentation was based on his book entitled The Barbarian Way, which I have ordered but not read. His premise is that the church has tamed Jesus and the Christian life. We live a controlled life, and the church serves to control that life, when Jesus talks about freedom and liberty. I know that those words are all loaded words, but what I hear Jesus saying to me is that life is not simple. Therefore, if we seek to make church simple then we have narrowed the exciting journey of life into a simple process. I can not visualize that in a way that makes me comfortable. I am not a simple person, nor a system person. I fear that simplifying the church will produce a caricature of the wild, mysterious life to which I believe Jesus has called us. The suburban church has in many ways sucked the life and power out of the gospel, and I find it difficult to see how simplifying the church gives life to the church or the kingdom or the world or us. Help me see that.

A personal note from Ed: The only hesitancy I had about using this forum to address questions was the limitation of written exchanges when compared to the opportunities face-to-face discussions offer. This is particularly true of this exchange. If these same issues were raised in a verbal conversation, I am sure the initial statements and my responses would have a very different feel than what they will have in writing. Part of the reason for this is in this case I am responding to statements rather than questions. The only way I can respond to statements is to agree or disagree. Some people will mistakenly see that kind of response as harsh rather than it simply being the respectful “to-the-point” discussion of ideas it is intended to be. Too often, we think if people reject our ideas they reject us. Therefore, we hold back in our discussions. This has the net effect of dulling our thinking. One of my best friends is my good friend precisely because he and I can argue passionately about ideas while never doubting our loyalty, commitment and love for each other. We sharpen each other’s thinking. I trust that this is the environment of RCF, and that my comments will be taken in this light.

Response: As I have stated before, I am not committed to utilizing “Simple Church” as a blueprint for RCF, even though God used it to confirm much of what he planted in me. What I am committed to is ensuring the ministries of RCF connect seamlessly to one another as we build a highway to fullness of life in Jesus Christ. From the very first moment people connect with RCF, I want them to sense that we know where we are going. We know how to get there, and we want them to come with us. If we do it right, they will be able to see exactly where to merge onto that highway we will build in order to join us in the journey. My conviction for taking this approach is not located simply in the philosophy of yet one more successful church leader’s approach to ministry. Instead it is founded in a conviction that God has used all my past ministry experiences, both positive and negative, my education, my understanding of scripture, the friends he has put in my life, and more to shape this approach to ministry within me.

Even though I am not committed to “Simple Church” as the model for ministry, a good part of your concern seems to be based upon the word “simple” and your application of it, so I think I do need to address it a bit. It seems to me there is a misunderstanding about what is meant by “simple.” As you are well aware, many of our words have different shades of meaning. In this context, simple means focused or streamlined. It is used in reference to the basic process God uses to grow all believers to full maturity so they can experience the fullness of life he wants for them as well as be effective advocates and expressions of his love to others. This is nothing more than an organizing principle around which we build ministry. Every effective congregation is committed to certain organizational principles. Two of the most well-known principles are the seeker-friendly church and the purpose driven church. An organizing principle is nothing more and nothing less than that which we bring to bear on how we approach ministry.

The organizing principle God has called me to focus on is a process approach. Where are people at now? Where does God want them to go? What are the methods he sets forth in scripture to get them there? How do we interpret and apply those methods at RCF in a way that one step effortlessly leads to the next? How do we make sure that this process is clearly visible and understood by all who come to be a part of our fellowship? Please, excuse me for saying it this bluntly, but there is nothing simple, in the way “simple” is commonly understood, about figuring that out and applying it.

Still, Jesus was a proponent of life with God being simple. Consider the context of Jesus’ ministry and from whom his major opposition came. His opposition came from those who complicated a life with God by building rules upon laws and adding interpretations of those rules on top of it all. Part of what set Jesus apart was his simple approach to a life with God. “Do unto others as you have them do unto you.” “Love God with everything you’ve got and love your neighbor as yourself.” These well-known paraphrased statements of Jesus were about removing the complexity that had been built up by the well-meaning professional clergy of the day and simplifying truth so that others could understand and engage it. Does that remove all ambiguity, mystery and complexity from our lives? Absolutely not! But it is the natural tendency of all human beings to make life more complicated than God intended it to be.

To move on to another aspect of your concerns, I think I see some confusion between the management and control of ministry and the management and control of life. You write, “His [McManus] premise is that the church has tamed Jesus and the Christian life. We live a controlled life, and the church serves to control that life, when Jesus talks about freedom and liberty.”

I have no doubt that some churches do seek to control the way people live. I’ve been in one or two and heard horror stories about a lot more. However, while some churches are overly controlling, the church of the New Testament does not exist to control life. The church is the instrument God uses to nurture believers and communicate his character, including his love, to the world. In order to do that effectively, the church has to be focused on those tasks. To focus on that mission is to focus the ministry of the church. When we focus the ministry of the church on teaching people how to connect with God, we are not defining for them how that will be expressed in their lives. What we have defined is the “delivery system” we believe God has determined to be the most effective way to communicate truth and nurture people in that truth. This produces no caricature of the life to which God has called us but enables us to live that life with clarity and power.

I was perplexed by your reference to an Erwin McManus presentation as providing the framework to help you voice your objections/questions/doubts about what you think I am advocating. While I have not read any of McManus’s books, he is a frequent contributor to one of my favorite podcasts and is also referenced there quite frequently. I’ve listened to a couple of extended interviews with him and viewed a brief video clip of him speaking. In one of our meetings here in Alamosa, one of our members read a rather lengthy section of his “The Barbarian Way.” While I would not consider my knowledge of his work vast, there is nothing I have ever heard him advocate or attributed to him that would contradict the approach to ministry I see in scripture – even when he speaks of complexity.

In an attempt to gain a better understanding of your concerns, I dove into the archives of my podcasts to again listen to those interviews and review that short video clip. I also searched the internet to try and expand my understanding. In doing so, the very first thing that popped up in my search was the following McManus quote taken from his book, “Uprising.” Unfortunately, the author failed to include the page numbers in his citation.

Several years ago I was mesmerized by the amazing talent of a classical pianist named Chris Crossan. After playing a wide spectrum of music, spanning from Beethoven to Bach to the Beatles, he invited an admiring student to come up and play. The student seemed a bit off balance by the invitation. It wasn't that he was timid before audiences; it was that he didn't know how to play the piano. But Chris insisted, almost as if missing the most important part of the information. Chris kept emphasizing he was free to play anything he wanted. Again the student, in somewhat embarrassed manner, explained that he didn't know how to play the piano. And then Chris pressed his point.

Although the student had the opportunity, he really didn't have the freedom. Opportunity and freedom are not the same thing. Chris's freedom to play the full spectrum of music, to passionately express the music within his soul, was only available to him as a result of years and years of discipline. Discipline can be confused with conformity. Many times we run from discipline or at least resist it because we feel we are being forced to conform in the most negative sense of the word. No one wants to be a clone. No one's life ambition is to be a carbon copy of someone else (except, of course, all those Elvis impersonators). Yet the irony is that when we forsake discipline in our attempt to avoid conformity, we lose our potential to be truly free. The course set before us offers the freedom that comes from a discipline of the soul. There is a gauntlet you must be willing to pass through. At first the pursuit of character has the feel of learning scales, but soon what is formed becomes music to your ears. Without character all you're doing is playing the radio. When the character of Christ is formed within, you are no longer simply an echo but a voice.

Since I don’t have the context, the application I am making may not have been McManus’ point; however it is true for my application nonetheless. The reason why we will be disciplined and focused in our ministry process, embracing some ministries while excluding others, is precisely so that people will not only have the opportunity, but the freedom, to live the wild, mysterious life of which you speak. It is incumbent upon the church to provide an arena that encourages and instills the core truth and experiences that are foundational for every believer. Other approaches that embrace every good and worthwhile ministry idea that comes down the track actually are the ones that, in their complexity, reduce the gospel and suck the life out of it. When we choose to focus exclusively on New Testament methods, and wrap them in 21^st century, Cypress Texas culture, we are actually availing ourselves of the power inherent in God’s ways by refusing to allow them to be watered down. When people come to RCF to drink of the life-giving water of Jesus Christ, I want them to be drinking from a fire hose rather than a water fountain that barely has enough strength to push the water up out of the pipes.

I’ve never heard the term “suburban church” which you use to refer to a particular style of ministry to which you object. If I infer your meaning correctly, what I believe God is leading us to establish, in fact what I am committed to establishing, is anything but the consumer oriented, cookie cutter approach that so many suburban churches seem to emulate. We will not be a carbon copy of what some Pied Piper church is already doing. We will learn from them, but we will, following the lead of God and empowered by the Holy Spirit, blaze the unique trail God has designed specifically for us.