After the Vomitting…Don’t Forget!

Complaining is an easy thing to do. We all have reasons to complain. Sometimes it is a little more difficult to notice the great stuff in our lives.

Think about that feeling right after you vomit when the wish-you-were-dead nausea is finally relieved. It is as if the whole world is at your feet just waiting to be conquered.

That is the feeling that Israel was experiencing when Moses was giving them the low-down just before they were to enter the Promised Land. For forty years they were in the desert eating “what is it?” and drinking water that was either very sparse or given by a miracle from a hard rock.

And there is a danger in that moment of euphoria when we no longer feel like throwing up. Sometimes we want to go out and eat a big, juicy burger with a large fries and a milkshake. Big mistake!

God warned Israel to be careful that they did not forget Him or his commandments. Once they get into the Promised Land, it would be easy to forget the desert and their reliance on God.

The desert is the training ground where God teaches us to rely on Him. In the desert, we only get exactly what we need for the moment. The Promised Land is a land of “milk” and “honey.” Milk is a reference to shepherding, while honey is a reference to farming.

They have lived for forty years in the milk world where nothing could be grown, and they could only eat exactly what God provided. Now they will be living in a land of shepherding and farming. It is in the farm land that we are tempted to forget God and that He provides everything that is available.

As soon as I put my money into an IRA, it’s easy to forget that God provides the increase. We can begin to believe that everything we have is provided by our own hands.

“When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God…Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God…You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me’” (Deuteronomy 8:10-11a, 12-13a, 17).

In those times and places of our lives, when we finally find relief from the desert moments, we will be tempted to forget that God has provided that relief. And as children of God, let us never forget the words that Moses said to us, just before we entered the land of milk and honey.

We are called to honor God in the desert and on the farm.

In His dust,
Johnny

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.

Religion, Faith, Fundamentalism

An exploration of supposed antitheses and unexpected partners by Jason Davies-Kildea

Religious belief is not a threat to reason, nor is faith to truth, the essential problem derives from fundamentalism and the violence associated with the closing of the mind.

Introduction

This essay will focus on an exploration of three relationships: religion and reason; faith and truth; fundamentalism and violence.  Essentially what needs to be considered is whether these first two pairs are antithetical and if the last couplet is inextricably linked.  Are religious belief and rational thinking sworn enemies in the modern era?  Is faith believing what you know isn’t true?  In what ways can fundamentalism be said to close the mind?  Does this necessarily result in violence?  These are the kinds of queries that will be explored throughout this essay.

After establishing the scope of concern and necessary definitions, each of the three relationships will be explored in turn.  Prior to concluding, it will also be asked whether there are any valid alternatives to fundamentalism that might be able to redeem religion in the twenty first century.  What might these look like and how can they survive a time of rapid change, scientific and technological advance?  The results of this exploration will demonstrate that fundamentalism, not religion or faith per se, is particularly problematic because it facilitates both prejudice and violence.

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The Danger of Fundamentalism

Can’t we agree to disagree? asks Jonathan Gainey

It’s a bitter life for those who choose to see the world through the eyes of fundamentalism. And whether that is a religious fundamentalism or the root of atheism and agnosticism, Enlightenment Fundamentalism, the words of one very wise person are true, “Fundamentalists are people who are angry about something.” It doesn’t matter what is said or who says it, the fundamentalist will always only seek the points to argue, and never take the opportunity to genuinely and respectfully invite constructive debate.

It seems that no matter how a person puts forth his or her opinion concerning a set of beliefs, the fundamentalist will only seek to find points upon which to disagree rather than seek to understand the point of view of another.

The greatest weakness of the fundamentalist is his or her inability to open his or her mind to possibilities. For two years, I studied with friends who were and are atheists and agnostics. Neither of us was ever convinced of the other’s view, but we all grew. We are still great friends and respect how we each view the world, though we choose to disagree. How can we do that? Through maturity and a sincere desire to deeply care for another person, even when we absolutely disagree with that individual’s beliefs.

“I can’t help but be a little intrigued by those who refuse to accept anything in the Bible as truth, until another non-God possibility is raised. For example, I have seen very educated scientists who have recently stated, “It may be a good idea to take a fresh look at the stories of the Bible. It may be that the stories are true. And those who claimed to see God and chariots, and people taken away into the sky were actually true stories about…aliens!”

And it really doesn’t offend me that people are more likely to believe in aliens than God. It’s human nature to only believe in what we can see. I don’t dislike anyone personally for thinking that way.

I am also very intrigued by the number of pre-Christians who now consider themselves atheists and agnostics. And the reason I am intrigued is because, in every one of these cases that I have personally witnessed, that person has done some serious soul searching. They are not flippant about their decision to give up faith. I still believe that their worldview has been distorted, but I respect their desire to find answers.

It cannot be argued that as Dr. John Lenox said to Dr. Richard Dawkins in “The God Delusion Debate” video, “The only thing that can be proven is math. Faith, History, and Science are all based on evidence, very convincing evidence in many cases, but still only evidence.”

I know that we all have doubts about aspects of this world. Many of us struggle daily with what to believe or not to believe. Others have our minds made up. But those of us who know the true value of philosophy, either religious or otherwise, are those who are aware that such views are always changing, growing, developing, ebbing and flowing. That is not to say that we ebb and flow in and out of belief, but aspects of our beliefs are in a constant state of development.

Even my own theology is in a constant state of flux, not in and out of faith in God, but always developing. Some things that I believed were absolutely essential to my faith 5 years ago or even 6 months ago, I now see as non-essentials.

Fundamentalists are usually associated with Evangelical Christians in the westrn world, but fundamentalism is the close-minded faith of any belief, including atheism.

In His dust,
Johnny

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.

ED (DL): Further Reading:  http://www.enjoyinggodministries.com/enjoying-god/fundamentalism-and-falwell/

Use your loaf!

Just do it! says Andrew Clark

Iremember listening to General John Gowans talking about salvationist initiative. He was preaching on the little dude in the bible who offered his loaves and fishes to Jesus, bringing out the ingenuity of his initiative and then the General went on to apply that in his genuinely apostolic fashion. He spoke about conversations he’d have with some African commissioners who could only ever talk in estimations about how many corps and soldiers they had because every week he’d hear about three or four corps that had sprung up that week through every day salvationists ‘using their loaf.’

He went on to talk about ‘permission.’ So often we think that we can’t do it, we can’t start a new initiative, we just can’t. General Gowan’s response to that was ‘you have the General’s permission.’ OK then … Sweet!

I say all that because I firmly feel that Salvationism should be a creative culture in which salvationists are free to develop warfare on their own patch, in their homes, in their local communities and at work. When they ‘come to the Army’, they should be equipped and impassioned for mission in the world. Our role as leaders should be to enlarge the vision of our people for the  great commission. Unfortunately the biggest thing that stops some folks is this idea of permission. To be honest, I don’t know any officer worth his/her salt who wouldn’t be totally excited about soldiers wanting to take this sort of initiative. Sure, leaders may well be able to give good guidance if the idea seems flawed or untimely etc, but we’ve confused that function of leader’s strategic framework with a sort of “I’m the boss, and I’ll say what you can and cannot do.” The Kingdom of God can’t really be contained like that.

Take what we are trying to do where I am in Torry, Aberdeen. We have different groups made up of a whole lot of different kinds of people…that is the primary form in which we meet. We meet as ‘congregation’ only once a month. One of the reasons we do this is that it takes away passivity as each small group are encouraged to work missionally in their contexts. By this very structure we have removed the “pew-sitting culture”.

In a previous corps appointment, we’d started the transition from congregation model to cell/ward model and the transformation was visible almost overnight in the corps, certainly in terms of there being much more people actively engaged in mission. If a corps is serious in releasing soldiers for mission, it will adjust itself to the most appropriate missional shape. Personally, I’d be delighted if my soldiers came to me reporting they wanted to start a cell group in their apartment block. More than that, I’d offer to go and cook the pizza!

As for soldiers who are not necessarily in the position I’ve describe, the conditions will be harder in that support may be minimal or there may even be outright opposition. In a sense, it is that attitude I am challenging. However, even when that does exist, we must forge forward. No-one can stop you leading people to Jesus and discipling them. As for integrating them into the corps, this may be the case of waiting for the right environment or set of circumstances. Yet, in many cases, a dose of new believers is what corps need! The ultimate thing here is the Kingdom of God. I’d argue that soul saving, disciple making and serving humanity are thoroughly Army, our stated mission, and anyone would have a hard time saying “you can’t do that.”

It beats me altogether that an oppressive system like that could survive very long before being very publically exposed for the hell-sent system that it is! If it is not happening, it is time for the revolution. And, because of that, we must be willing to count the cost…in spite of previous wounds. Some may think that it is a cost that’s not worth paying and many are leaving the Army in order to do what they feel they should do. For me, that has never been a real option as a covenanted officer and soldier. I’ve always felt that it is pretty much impossible to change anything by leaving it!

The Salvation Army system we have has pretty much remained the same as it was when it was set up. It was a system of engaging new converts in active discipleship. The problem we have is that as we think we’ve grown in maturity as an organisation, we’ve taken on the trappings of ‘churchianity’ and over-developed our priesthood. The ‘Army system’ was a stroke of genius and Booth adopted it because it worked.

I’ve proved, even in small ways, that the structure can still produce effective mission and mobilisation when approached with the correct spirit. I’ve had the opportunity and joy of seeing soldiers mobilised, people saved, leaders made and empowered.

Please understand, I’m not promoting some sort of anti-leadership anarchy. Quite the opposite. My plea is as much to leaders as anything else, but I am saying that if we do come up against a stifling environment that we can’t just sit back, either as officers or as soldiers.

I remember as a very new salvationist getting completely frustrated with my corps and my corps officer. It seemed like the status quo was going to win the day, in fact, I think the victory had pretty much been secured. I explored various options with my CO, shared several ideas and schemes for the salvation of the town! His response was that I sell the War Cry in the street. I did this, dutifully, but from that moment I resolved that it was too dangerous to allow my vision, however immature, naive or idealistic to be quashed. What did I do? I gave all my ideas a go as far as I could do in myself…they soon joined in when it was working!

Salvationism must be a creative culture where individuals should be so envisioned that they believe that they have the freedom to get on and do it!

Writer: Captain Andrew Clark is a Scottish Salvation Army officer committed to
seeing the Army renewed by the Holy Spirit and effectively reaching the
lost. He currently serves as the corps officer on the front line in Torry,
an urban priority area in the city of Aberdeen. He is married to Tracy, has
two children, Benjamin and Ceitidh, and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
called Brengle. His other passion in life is VW campervans and he would love
to learn the bagpipes. He blogs regularly at armyrenewal.blogspot.com

Just Holy (Part 3)

Why are we divided about holiness? asks Danielle Strickland

Why is the church, indeed even The Salvation Army divided about holiness? On one hand there are those who suggest that holiness must be personal, individual - that it is, above all other things, a blessing of the heart that leads to purity within. It is an experience of divine cleansing and freedom from sin. Others suggest, almost on the contrary that holiness is only made complete within the fight for social justice. Reforming society is about holiness expressed through solidarity with the poor, outspoken prophetic, anti-religious behaviour that hopes to ignite and offend in anticipation of God’s kingdom come. These campaigners use John the Baptist and Jesus as examples of non-conformists (even to religious standards) to say that personal-based holiness movements are pharisaical. And they may be right.

Critics of personal holiness without social impact are quick to point out the preachers and advocates of personal holiness movements who live in expensive homes and run state of the art programs but neglect the poor.

Holiness movements in the Western world during the last half of the century have largely catered to a prosperity theme and a theology that like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day equate personal moral behaviour with acceptance and prosperity by God. Not only that, but they’ve also compiled a list of moral sins that are damnable and exclusionary - homosexuality and abortion are at the top of the list while systemic systems of injustice like apartied, inequality and extreme poverty go un-adressed.

Those outside of the prosperity bubble of God’s favour have been accused of not living up to a moral code of holiness. Holiness, as one advocate puts it - is the solution to every problem. But is it? Is holiness the solution to a child born to parents so poor that they cannot sustain themselves with enough nuritment to make it through their early years? Is holiness the solution to the farmer who is exploited on a regular basis, kept from providing a decent wage for his children to go to school? Is holiness the solution for women trapped in illegal brothels, drugged and exploited, and sexually abused?

Social justice advocates say these are not holiness issues - they are justice issues. Those women don’t need more personal piety - that child doesn’t need to pray more often or with more faith - that worker doesn’t need anymore hymns singing him into submission - they need rights, advocacy, reform, rescue and avenues of fighting a systemic evil and bringing God’s justice to bear.

On the other hand, those holiness representatives are quick to point out the shortcomings of social reform without inward change. Not only of the reform campaign ideals, but of the reformers themselves. How can love be championed by a man who commits adultery they say about Martin Luther King Jr.? How can God’s kingdom be advancing through Bono’s proclaimation of the gospel to the poor when he uses swear words on T.V.? Billions of dollars and a generation of people committed to helping the world’s poor dismissed by the external impurity of language and moral purity codes broken.

Harsh assessments of one another and ‘camps’ of holiness that celebrate specific facits of holiness but may miss the bigger picture are not helpful to our mission of winning the world. Holiness, much like Salvation is much bigger than we can perhaps ever know, but if the foundation of God’s throne is righteousness and justice like the Bible suggests then perhaps we ought to discover the way to make ready for Christ’s sovereign presence in the world. Perhaps righteousness and justice are not sequential or competing ideas but expressions of the same love. I remember someone once suggesting that righteousness is the first commandment and justice is the second. The two hinges of God’s presence in the world. Perhaps the argument is mute if we understand more completely what holiness means.

Dr. Purkiser from The Wesley Center for Applied Theology explores the issue of holiness and social impact: “What we need to recover is the insight that “personal gospel” and “social gospel” are both perversions of the New Testament. There is only one Gospel. To split it is to destroy it. We cannot choose between doctrine and ethics, between creed and life, between inner experience and outer conduct, between individual salvation and social action. Both are in the New Testament and are not divided. What God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”

E.  Stanley Jones said it well: The clash between the individual gospel and the social gospel leaves me cold. An individual gospel without a social gospel is a soul without a body, and a social gospel without an individual gospel is a body without a soul. One is a ghost and the other a corpse. Put the two together, and you have a living person. I want and need one gospel - a gospel that lays its hand on the individual and says, ‘Repent, be converted,’ that lays its hand on the corporate will and says, ‘Repent, be con­verted’-one gospel, two applications.

Tom Sine in The New Conspirators describes a generation of believers who are starting to grasp the essence of holiness as the embrace of both righteousness and justice. He speaks passionately about world poverty,  ”The only way poverty will become history is for those of us whom God has entrusted with God’s generous resources to critically evaluate our own lives and priorities. It is estimated that today over 200 million Christians live in dire poverty. Isn’t there something terribly wrong, in the international body of Christ, when some of us live palatially and other Christians can’t keep their kids fed? Isn’t it past time to recognize that we live in an interconnected global village in which there is no longer such a thing as a ‘private’ lifestyle choice?”

The Manual of the Church of the Nazarene states; “We understand Christian holiness to be inseparable from ministry to the poor in that it drives the Christian beyond his or her own individual perfection and toward the creation of a more just and equitable society and world. Holiness, far from distancing believers from the desperate economic needs of people in our world, motivates us to place our means in the service of alleviating such need and to adjust our wants in accordance with the needs of others.”

Holiness cannot be about my own personal relationship with God. To make it that small of an experience is to miss the meaning of shalom and the fullness of the ‘blessing’. Both its message and its power is rooted in how we live in holiness and how we live out our holiness in the here and now. Holiness as John Wesley has suggested, is social. It is about an internal revolution that reflects a counter cultural message lived not just in theory, but in the hearts of people. This in turn overthrows ’superpowers’ with the power of the gospel. It is John Wesley’s heart ’strangely warmed’, it is Oscar Romero, shot while administering the sacrament to the poor, it is William marching on white horses straight to parliament and Catherine preaching up a storm to crowds from the rich side of town; it is Wilberforce, sleeping in a coffin the same size as slave ship hold to identify with the poor and working at great expense for his entire life for the abolition of the slave trade; it is Finney’s evangelical campaigns marked by his parallel fight for women’s equality and civil rights in America, it is Martin Luther King Jr. declaring a prophetic picture of how things can be when love comes to town.

Holiness is the manifestation of righteousness and justice from the inside-out. So, let’s be Just Holy.

Writer: Capt. Danielle Strickland is currently the Social Justice Director of the Southern Australia Territory. She digs traveling, reading, running, speaking, basketball and movies. Her passion is grace, mercy and justice… and all the stuff in between. Her favourite question is ‘how hard can it be?’ and most of her days are spent answering it.

Just Holy (Part 2)

Danielle Strickland continues her questions about justice and holiness.

Jesus suggests that his coming and the announcement of his kingdom would be like yeast, something that would work its way inside and then force it’s way out. This has been demonstrated in personal salvation, holiness and in the consequential social impacts.

John Wesley is the founder of Methodism and the leader of a great awakening. He is the father of holiness and many holiness traditions to this day consider John Wesley the authority on holiness doctrine.

The last letter that John Wesley wrote was to William Wilberforce, a man who had been converted under Wesley’s ministry and who was a member of Parliament. The letter concerns his opposition to slavery and encouragement for Wilberforce to take action for change. (Parliament finally outlawed England’s participation in the slave trade in 1807. The year 2007 marked the 200th anniversary of the abolition of British-US slave trade.)

Balam, February 24, 1791

Dear Sir:

Unless the divine power has raised you up to be as Athanasius contra mundum, I see not how you can go through your glorious enterprise in opposing that execrable villainy which is the scandal of religion, of England, and of human nature. Unless God has raised you up for this very thing, you will be worn out by the opposition of men and devils.

But if God be for you, who can be against you? Are all of them together stronger than God? O be not weary of well doing! Go on, in the name of God and in the power of his might, till even American slavery (the vilest that ever saw the sun) shall vanish away before it. Reading this morning a tract wrote by a poor African, I was particularly struck by that circumstance that a man who has a black skin, being wronged or outraged by a white man, can have no redress; it being a “law” in our colonies that the oath of a black against a white goes for nothing. What villainy is this?

That he who has guided you from youth up may continue to strengthen you in this and all things, is the prayer of, dear sir,

Your affectionate servant,

John Wesley

In the best traditions of holiness revivals and movements, ‘holiness of heart’ means a changed inward reality resulting in changed outward behaviour. The implication is that the world will be changed as a direct result of our experience of holiness. The process of holiness working its way from inside-out turns greed to generosity, selfishness to community and conceit to charity and then as a direct result, turns society upside down. “There have been other periods in history when faith tangibly changed things. Often called ‘Great Awakenings’, they are times when the ‘revival’ of faith alters societies. In fact, the historians say that spiritual activity isn’t called revival until it changes something, no just in people’s inner lives but in society.”

Even the earliest church holiness teacher, the Apostle Paul understood that effective church planting and kingdom building meant caring for the poor (Gal. 2:10), abolishing poverty (re-distribution) and celebrating equality (Philemon, Galations, Ephesians). All of this contributes to a rich history of social justice within the Christian witness over the centuries.

QUESTIONS:

Is social justice an outworking or an evidence of holiness?

Is personal holiness a barrier to engagement with the world?

Is social justice holiness expressed in the word?

A famous Jazz singer says that justice is love in public… so if holiness is perfect love then isn’t it evidenced by justice?

Writer: Capt. Danielle Strickland is currently the Social Justice Director of the Southern Australia Territory. She digs traveling, reading, running, speaking, basketball and movies. Her passion is grace, mercy and justice… and all the stuff in between. Her favourite question is ‘how hard can it be?’ and most of her days are spent answering it.

Just Holy (Part 1)

Holiness must include helping the poor and oppressed says Danielle Strickland

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Psalm 97:2

But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! Amos 5:24

There’s been a bold surge in the social justice space in the last decade. New emerging campaigns have been spreading the truth about the desperate need of many global issues that are worthy of paying attention too and lending a helping hand.

Far from a new idea, the global church has a great Christian tradition, a long ancient track record of social reform. Exposing the evils of the slave trade, and helping to end it, campaigning for equality and women’s rights, health and welfare reform, the care of prisoners and the reforming of prison systems around the world, education and employment options, the support of unions and workers rights. On and on goes the list of Christians who with a strong understanding of biblical theology embraced lives of social justice.

Far from being separate from purity and holiness movements, many of them were fueled by the fire of holiness preachers and revivals. Jim Wallace (in “Seven Ways to Change the World” )  suggests that those same hungers that fueled the revival fires of past great awakenings are alive and well today,  “Two of the great hungers in our world today are the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice. The connection between the two is the one the world is waiting for, especially the new generation. And the first hunger will empower the second”.

Alongside our glorious past though, we also have shameful traditions. Exploitation of the poor, shaming the sinner, colonial support, power bases that relied on Christian ethics of submission to government authorities to continue their oppressive regimes, support of slavery and the inequality of women and minorities that are still allowed to continue within the Christian church at large.

The strength and weaknesses of our Christian tradition has its place for a discussion around holiness. Proponents of holiness would suggest it’s the answer to any problem and supporters of justice would suggest it has come woefully short in changing the world.

Is holiness simply the establishing of a ‘christian culture’ a ‘holy club’ that not only segregates itself from the world but maintains the exploitation of the poor?

The outcome and history of spiritual awakenings and revivals throughout history paint a different picture. Far from polarized, righteousness and justice are like twins, inseparable and from the same source. Psalm 97 suggests that both (together) are the foundation of God’s presence in the world. Isaiah 9:7 speaks prophetically of Jesus, “Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David’s throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever.”

Isaiah 16:5 describes Christ’s reign, “In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it- one from the house of David- one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness.”

In Matthew 12:18 God the Father declares His delight in Jesus and the fulfillment of His purpose on earth, “Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.”

Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology explains the intimate connection between righteousness and justice by breaking down the root of righteousness in the Bible, “The appropriate background to bear in mind for understanding the teaching of both John the Baptist and Jesus the Christ on righteousness/justice are two of the dominant ideas of the Old Testament. When we translate the Greek words based on the stem dikai- into English we make use of two sets of words based on the stems, just and right. So we have just, justice, justify and right, righteous, righteousness, rightwise (old English).”

Writer: Capt. Danielle Strickland is currently the Social Justice Director of the Southern Australia Territory. She digs traveling, reading, running, speaking, basketball and movies. Her passion is grace, mercy and justice… and all the stuff in between. Her favourite question is ‘how hard can it be?’ and most of her days are spent answering it.

“The Under-Shepherd”

Who is really looking after the sheep? asks Jonathan Gainey

Apparently it is shocking to some non-believers when a Christian claims that God does not do everything for His children. An article I wrote, titled, “God Is Not a Babysitter” has brought about a wonderful and sometimes disturbing discussion on one particular website.         ( http://therubicon.org/2009/03/god-is-not-a-babysitter/)

One person commented, “Either God is active in the world, or he isn’t. And by active, I mean in people’s personal lives. That includes protection for the innocent. Or else … he’s not worth believing in.” And another said, “I am told everything that happens is “God’s will” part of “God’s master plan”. When I contemplate the world I see humans doing vast evil to other humans, animals and earth itself. Natural disasters, so called “Acts of God”, bring destruction and pain to thousands at a time. I see disease, molestation, rape, murder, etc. If God is omnipotent, then God must be the cause of these vile events. Worship a beast like this? I don’t think so.”

One of the major pictures that studying the Hebraic and Jewish roots of the New Testament has given me is that of the Shepherd.

To understand the role of a shepherd, one only has to spend a little time with the Bedouin shepherds of today in the Middle East. Bedouin shepherds still hold to the ancient practices of the Jewish shepherds of the time of Jesus. A Bedouin practice that is specifically important is the fact that it is not the responsibility of the shepherd to take care of the sheep; it is the under-shepherds who do the actual shepherding. The shepherd or owner of the sheep merely points the way, while the women, boys, and girls (under-shepherds) do the actual feeding and guiding.

This is the picture that Jesus is sharing with Peter when he says to Peter, “If you love me, then feed my sheep” (My paraphrase of John 21:15-17).

Unfortunately, many “Christians” have attempted to make God an under-shepherd, expecting him to give us parking places, pay for our groceries, stand in front of bullets, and babysit our kids. No matter how much those people claim that God has provided those things, the Scriptural and practical truth is that God offers guidance for how we can be better parents, providers, and planners, and live safe, productive lives. It is our responsibility to be effective under-shepherds and follow His direction.

In my opinion, God does not choose our college, our car, or our wife. That is our job. That does not mean that there is no God. It means that just like most parents, there comes a time when we expect our children to take care of themselves using the guidance that we have provided.

One mistake we can easily make about God is approaching him with a pragmatic philosophy. Another mistake is to assume that God is a staunch democratic provider. Either of these approaches makes God out to be what he isn’t, a provider of all for everyone whether we do for ourselves or not.

God provides through his teaching, not unlike a parent or any animal who bears young and sends them out to live what they’ve been taught.

I would not say that if my parents did not stand over my bed all night without sleeping to keep me safe, that they weren’t parents worth having. It is very silly to assume that God is supposed to be some kind of piggy bank for everyone or he’s not God. Over and over, the words of the Bible point to the words of the Bible as being the instructions of God. Nowhere does that instruction tell us that God does not require us to learn, grow, and provide for ourselves.

The mysteries of God will always boggle the finite mind. One person living and another person dying is the way of the world; it has very little to do with whether or not God is taking care of us. After all, we are the under-shepherds.

In His dust,
Johnny

Writer: Capt. Jonathan Gainey was born in Jacksonville, FL in June, 1969. He has been married to Staci, the daughter of retired Salvation Army officers, for twenty years and they have four children ages 18, 16, 12, and 4. Jonathan was commissioned as an officer in June of 2002, and is currently serving in his third appointment in New Bern, NC, USA. He is working on a Masters of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and is the creator and manager of the Flocks Diner website, where his passion for learning and teaching is expressed and shared through writing and a weekly podcast.

Cultural Grace

How God led us to live in another culture by Lieut-Colonel Maxwell Ryan

I suppose a workable definition of culture is ‘the way we do things’, referring not only to isolated acts, but also to the assumptions, priorities and needs which motivate the acts in which they are embedded.

While it was not easy for my wife and me to live in the African culture we experienced in Ghana, our distance from the Canadian lifestyle had commenced when we lived and worked in England for two years prior to being transferred to Ghana in the autumn of 1993.

Experience as a corps officer, as well as several years as an editor and writer, had nourished an interest in people, language and thought-forms - all hopefully an aid to my work as principal of a small officer training college in Tema, Ghana’s port city. The student body of Ghanaians and Liberians came from six language and tribal groups, though the common language of the college, as well as the two countries involved, was English.

I soon learned that while dictionary and idiomatic English are generically the same, in practical terms they are not. And what if a logically and linguistically correct definition does not fit the cultural grid through which the students understand meanings? What about my quickly squashed assumption that conceptual thinking was the norm? The national education system of rote learning does not encourage conceptual thinking, by which I mean the ability to take unrelated ideas and weave them into meanings that were inherent but not obvious.

Western theology, biblical and church studies and the like come packaged as concepts/propositions/questions/digression - much of which is symbolic. And it doesn’t usually fit with the West African approach to theological and biblical understanding that we experienced. There, the way to the heart and to understanding is story-telling. Many times in Africa we thanked God that His Word is a true story, about the universal Saviour.

We found it essential to have read country and local history and in this way become aware of the pervasive myths and stories out of which life-meaning is woven. We also gradually became aware of the pressuring and stifling effect of traditional culture which so often made it difficult for local  Christians to experience a full and free application of biblical principles to everyday living.

In brief, all that we as expatriate Christians could hope to do while living in another culture was to model Jesus Christ in the minutae of daily living on a compound where privacy was not important. We found that where there was interracial openness, a sense of humour and wits tuned sensitively to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, as well as conscious joy in the attractive goodness of God’s holiness, these were used by Him to transcend cultural barriers.

Writer: Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell Ryan is a former Editor in Chief in Canada and the UK. In retirement he is a copy editor of theRubicon and the author of two series on theRubicon - Resurrected Writers and Thinkaloud

Changing church culture 1

 by Eleanor Burne-Jones

I live in an area where many congregations are aging and churches are approaching closure.  Many are struggling, and even if they are just about able to manage financially, their members are getting older and  the programme is slowly diminishing.  They are unable to offer the kind of resources that draw or hold new and younger people, such as different kinds of worship services, Alpha courses, Bible studies at different levels, small groups, and a high-challenge high-support environment for discipleship with integrated mission training.  Often there are people in the congregations who have struggled to encourage renewal over decades. Often, successive waves of innovative newcomers have been driven out by the group’s change-resistance.  Often they have had leaders who have been trying over years to turn the congregations around, and who have been driven to despair by the situation.

Can anything impact church culture and enable the kinds of changes that are needed for renewal?   I believe so. I think many of our professional church leaders (of all denominations) are ‘corks that need to be popped’, discipling, developing and deploying every believer. This means thinking primarily in terms of sending out rather than gathering in, and focussing on making disciples who will make disciples, rather than focussing on controlling, managing, and all-too-often warehousing, believers. It’s a paradigm shift in overall church thinking, away from shepherd-sheep as the primary model of church.

When I moved to Cornwall as a lay person, and a sister at the time in an Anglican Franciscan Third Order, (and also a Salvationist), I realised quickly there was no local network for people who were called to pioneering ministries of different kinds.  There was a leaders network, but it was for clergy so far as I understand, and I wasn’t in any formal role in the church so was not involved. Neither were any of my friends who were lay people and out setting up new initiatives. So we set up the Cornwall Fresh Expressions Network, invited everyone interested, and got on with encouraging each other and creating a learning community. It has grown and continues to grow steadily, now including everyone from senior ministers to new believers including teens who share their dreams for the future of the church. We are ecumenical, we have about equal numbers of women and men, lay and ordained, people working alone and those able to gather a team.

Every stereotype of church planters and pioneers I had has been challenged by the people in the network. The point is that this group works not just for us to give each other encouragement in a difficult mission context, and in a context which has not helped lay people get out and serve God with affirmation and support, but we work together as a vital learning community, listening to God, Scripture and one another, even from our very different theological perspectives.

So the first thing I’d suggest, whether you are a soldier or in validated church leadership, is join, or create, a network. It really is as simple as that.  Do whatever it takes to find others with a similar calling and energy, lay on food, provide worship, pray for each other, provide pastoral care for exhausted, frustrated and despairing planters and church leaders, and keep building warm relationships with the churches in your area. I’ve seen trust slowly grow, barriers come down, and entrenched attitudes begin to change.  Find training resources and before you know it the group will be generating its own training materials and giving them away.

The next challenge, whether you want to encourage a fading congregation into renewal, or need to embed a change-prepared culture into a new church plant, is explore and understand renewal. Look at the process, look at the kind of leadership it takes, and work out what incremental steps might look like in reality. They will be as unique as each situation, but there are common themes.  Keep coming back to the question, ‘What would it take?’ to sort out the next step.  The Holy Spirit brings the renewal, not the leader or participants. But God does not force us, and in different ways we can surely derail what would otherwise be God’s life-giving movements amongst and through us. The ‘What would it take?’ question often brings us to face hard changes.  We can pray for renewal, we can pray for revival, but as the old truth says, it needs to start with us. We often need to know what to repent of, what needs to change, what our part in opening the door to the Holy Spirit needs to be. 

On reflecting on what we need to understand about ourselves as groups, here’s a useful definition of [church] culture by David Brubaker, who draws also on the work of others:

‘Culture is composed of the tacit assumptions about rules, rituals, roles, and relationships, which are expressed in values and symbols.  The equipper functions as cultivator of culture, fostering the awareness of the system’s history and depths‘¹.

For example, if one of the unwritten rules is ‘we don’t tolerate disagreements around here’, and in fact that means that conflict is suppressed, and issues are never dealt with, you have unearthed a reason a church may be stuck in impasse rather than renewed and growing.  If clergy and laity are locked in their relationship into a shepherd and sheep model, you may have unearthed a reason why lay people are not developed and sent out in mission, and a whole mindset may need to change for your church to experience renewal.

Dr Jeffrey Pugh, a senior minister in Australia, did his doctoral research², including theological reflection, on the role of leaders in congregations that experienced renewal.  In my own words, here is the summary of what he found, as I understand it.  Present in churches that turned around were: An emotionally mature, well differentiated³ leader, who leads from an ethical heart. He or she creates a sense of safety in the group, of all, the leader’s friends and enemies, being safely held in his/her warm, positive regard⁴. This leader transitions the culture of a congregation (if necessary) from a culture of control to a culture of competence⁵. This leader enables a congregation to journey through the chaos and pain of change by listening to the congregation and discerning with them those vital things that need be kept in order for the congregation to retain a sense of safety, self-identity, and their connection between past, present and future⁶.

Much of the above ties in very naturally with preaching and teaching, and lends itself to being broken down into elements, and explored in your learning community, as you listen to one another’s thoughts and experiences and reflect on your own developing leadership. Questions to ask might again be: What would it take? How do I need to change? It might be, ‘How can I articulate in a life-giving way in the group I’m part of but don’t lead, what might help us all move forward?’ It might be about how we need to change our thinking as individuals and how we respond to what God is saying to us in our reflection together.

The second most important resource for changing church culture, and here we are once again asking about incremental steps the congregation can take together, is conflict literacy training. The group can take this journey together to prepare themselves to handle disagreements, even strong differences and painful issues, in a way that demonstrates faith that God can bring good out of even the most difficult experiences we face in the church. (More on this to come in part 2.)

This process of reflection is for all of us.  Our mission contexts are constantly changing around us.  I believe renewal is possible even in the declined churches I see around me in rural UK, because nothing is impossible for God. I believe he works within our humanity, within ‘the way we work in groups’, within our God-created natures, even in our limitations, and relational holiness can be beautifully expressed as we work together on the nuts and bolts of our congregational renewal, in conflict transformation, and trust-building in our communities.  One of the most beautiful cultural renewals possible in the church is that of listening, sensitive and thoughtful encouragement. We can immediately practice this with those around us. If it isn’t happening vertically where you are within the church, then encourage it, and help it to happen horizontally across networks and groups you facilitate.

 Writer: Eleanor Burne-Jones grew up in The Salvation Army, but gradually left the Army and the church by her mid twenties. She spent more than fifteen years in the Jewish faith, before returning to Christ and The Salvation Army in 2003/4.  She was noviced as a Franciscan at the same time she was enrolled a soldier, and had nearly three years of Franciscan spiritual formation in the Third Order Soc. St Francis before asking to live out her vocation within The Salvation Army. In 2007 she set up Kres Jesu Krist, (Cornwall Church Health) with an ecumenical lay team. They offer training and spiritual accompaniment, and facilitate the Cornwall Fresh Expressions Network for people in pioneering ministries and church planting across the county. She is studying theology, and is a soldier at Penzance Corps, UK and has her own blog.

 Resources (UK): Fresh Expressions DVDs and website. http://www.freshexpressions.org.uk/index.asp?id=1

References

1. David Brubaker, adapted from Paul Stevens and Phil Collins, Alban Institute 1993.
2. Dr  Jeffrey Pugh, PhD thesis, Fantasyland Faith, the redemptive role of ethical leaders within neurotic church systems. 2007 Available from Amazon, pub on demand, and http://www.flipkart.com/fantasyland-faith-redemptive-role-ethical/3836428962-ijz3fnw23d which includes an abstract.
3. The term is as used in Bown Family Systems theory. A useful resource is Roberta M Gilbert, ‘Extraordinary Relationships’ 1992, Wiley and Sons, Canada.
4. JP refers to ‘adequate holding environment’, a concept used in psychodynamics. JP compares a number of lenses through which to understand renewal in congregations, and the psychodynamic is one of them.
5. Terms as used in organisational culture theory.
6. Transitional Objects, as the term is used in the field of psychodynamics.